The Decisons That He Made For Himself
by Littlepurplestars
Summary: Preview: They burned and licked flames into the silence. He could see the words inside his mind as they flickered bright and scorched away the darkness and then smoldered and turned to ash as he pictured them falling to the floor. He decided that he was suddenly very alone in the blackness that he imagined had surrounded him. Summary: This is a dark and romantic Narusasu Fanfiction
1. Prologue

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Prologue

He thought about turning around and running the other way. He thought about changing his course and making a different fate for himself, but he refused to do so. Once he had made a decision, he never allowed himself to go back on it, even when he had regretted the choice he made before he had gotten too deep into it. This was both a weakness and a strength he supposed.

A few days before, he had finally allowed the thoughts to come and the memories to overtake him. All of his enemies were dead. He had slaughtered every single one, even those he had not intended to. So this was alright, it was ok to allow his mind to wander.

He thought about all of the things he had done over the years and decided that he only regretted a small fraction of them. It was true that he regretted the actual action of leaving in the first place but did not regret the reason why.

He regretted doing it all alone, but as he reminded himself, it was a decision that he had made and it could not be undone. He felt regret in leaving everything he had ever known behind, but it was necessary whether he chose it for himself or not. This was a path he had to take on his own.

He regretted causing terror to others, but this too was also necessary to reach his ultimate goal and they were in his way. He regretted spilling the blood from the two other remaining family members. It was a waste of noble blood to allow it to soak into the earth as he had done, but he did not regret extinguishing those particular lives and personalities however. The world would not mourn them. No, he did mourn them. He mourned one of the two.

He did not regret killing Uchiha Itatchi at the time. It was what he had lived and trained and breathed for most of his life. It was something he had wanted so badly that it urged him to give up all of those things he had thought about seconds before. He had given up having a normal life for the sake of destroying his brother. He did not regret killing the other man because he knew it was correct and it was another one of those necessary things in life. Later he did regret killing the man that was once his beloved brother, though. That man and the one that murdered his family were two different beings in one body to him.

When the truth was told, it hit him hard. He lost his mind and his problem solving skills. He lost his grasp on morality and everything else in the world was dead to him. The blood flowed from anything with a pulse in his way and he did the bidding of the one that had told him the truth, like a dog he followed behind.

When reality faded back into his mind he became a stray. He bit his master's hand and drew as much of the red liquid as he could. He drained him dry and buried the corpse in the earth from where he knew it could never be reanimated. And so ended the life of the second to last Uchiha.

Now he truly was alone. He was the last of an old and prestigious clan and he found that maybe it was for the best. He did not think children in the future would make this better. Nothing could make it better. It was a cracked and chipped porcelain cup that was beautiful for its imperfections. It was not to be mended.

He moved on inside his head and for the first time in a long time he thought about those particular things that he had left behind years ago and decided that he craved them. He needed them.

He needed her unfaltering praise and the way her mind could think of the solution she had read from scrolls or the class room. She could heal now, he remembered. She would be useful. He did not miss her personality in particular, but he missed what she had once offered him. He missed the utter devotion. He did not want her but he wanted her to adore him. He wanted anyone to adore him, but there was no one out here left that would want him.

He missed the fatherly tone, the know it all voice. He wanted the hand on his head to pet him like a treasure that was to be proud of. He wanted that visible brown eye to approve of him once more. He needed the riddled advice and the backwards compliments to bring him back down to earth. He needed to be pulled and roped in again.

He needed to be taught a lesson, a real one with chakra control exercises and memorized hand signs. He needed someone to look up to because right now he was as high as he could go and this scared him. He needed something or someone to be planted above him so that he could not float up into the sky with nothing below him to tether him to this life. He wanted to be scolded because he knew it was what he deserved.

He missed how everything was made into a challenge with _him_, how everything was a competition. He missed feeling like he was becoming stronger because of him always trying to outdo him. He wanted that rivalry back. He wanted to once again have all of his moves watched by those blue eyes and he wanted the other body to try to match him and fail mostly, but sometimes succeed. He missed that sense of devotion as well.

He missed the verbal fights from this one too. He missed the way his body felt like jumping under the skin of the other as the loud and wide mouth grew into an animalistic grin. He wanted that twisted smile to appear again and he wanted it just for him. He missed the way his fingers twitched and his body ached in a painful and agonizing way to reach out and offer some sort of affection to the only real friend that he had once had. He wanted the blue eyes on him and the fights to pick up where they had left off.

He wanted all of these things back but then thought better of it. He asked himself how he could want something that was impossible to achieve at this point. He had slipped out the back and kept running and running until there was nowhere else to go. They pursued him. _He _pursued him for years and had finally stopped. It was too late to want to be caught now. Did it not mean that he was no longer wanted now that the chase had ended? He decided that he wanted to be desired again and perhaps allow himself to feel that same sense of want in return.

He was ready to die. Of course he did not truly want to leave this world, the purpose of every living thing was to cling to life and avoid death, but he supposed that he was ready when he finally faced it. There was nothing left for him to do and there were so many things that he wished he could undo but could not, because he had chosen the actions for himself. He decided that he would be unafraid when the time came. Then he sighed.

He was reminded that there was nothing else left for him to do in this world. He could not go back to living a normal life after this and he was too old to start over again. He would be nineteen this year and it would not do. He had lost so much time. No, he had given up so much time. There would be no new bonds created, he could not bare it after having to sever the only one that truly meant something to him. And a life without bonds was not worth living.

He decided that maybe it was best that he ended his successful but lonely life soon before he was forced to spend more time wandering alone without a purpose or a comrade.

Comrades and friends were something he had once had. Well at least one anyway. He had had one that he considered his friend and a thousand that considered him theirs.

He shook his head. Thinking about _him_ earlier had done this to him. It had made him continue to bring him up in other thoughts until his head was only filled with him. He allowed himself to stop pushing the thoughts and feelings away. If he was going to die soon, he wanted to die with nothing in his mind chained back, he wanted to be free.

From the beginning he had always pushed the emotions aside and refused to allow himself to feel them. He had ignored them in attempt to forget them, hoping they would later fade away and wither until they died as a pile of ashes and dirt in the back of his mind. This time he brought them to the front of his conscious and for the first time indulged himself in the way they ached and entwined themselves around his organs.

He allowed himself to feel. He admitted to himself earlier that he had missed him, but this time he allowed himself to truly _miss_ him. He mourned the loss of the bond and the trust. He mourned the companionship and the deep looks that the other gave him at times when he thought he would go undiscovered. He thought on those looks and felt his heart speed up.

Deep within him from the moment he saw him in the playground, he knew that he was in love. He was in love with another boy. At first it was not love, as most crushes tend not to be, it was a deep infatuation. He would watch him from the corner of his eye. He would think about asking the other to play with him. He would fight with himself when he did not.

The stranger on the playground became a classmate and a teammate. The infatuation grew into something much more tender and harsher. He made a point to avoid him as much as possible. He wanted the feelings to disappear. He was meant only to live for finding revenge for his clan and nothing more.

It wasn't that his interest was a boy really, it wasn't something that mattered. It never mattered. What mattered was that this other person that he begged himself not to watch as closely as he did was his rival. He was better than the boy and he could not ever settle for any who were less than himself. He needed someone strong.

His thoughts shifted to modern times. This other man was now strong and he had proven his worth. He was a war hero and perhaps the strongest willed ninja alive at the moment. He was worthy of the last Uchiha.

It didn't matter. He would die soon and it would never happen. He did not want Sasuke anymore, he had stopped chasing.

He remembered the promise that came out of that loud and big mouth and hugged himself. He had promised to bring him back no matter what, so why did he give up in the moment that he found himself not minding being caught?

He thought of the pain he had inflicted and made another nonrefundable decision a second later. He would help the promise to be kept. He would allow the other man to see him within the village again. He hoped that it inflicted happiness and a sense of accomplishment. It was the least that he could do.

He would surely be attacked and punished. It didn't matter. He was ready to die.

Now he had stopped running through the trees and walked the rest of the way. He was nervous but something like that was not relevant. Yes, he would return and he would show that idiot that he was finally home just before he allowed them to kill him.

His hands filled with moisture from the sweat his nerves caused and he self-consciously felt to make sure that his katana was sheathed the whole way, he was not a threat and he wanted it to be known.

There was a time when he had convinced himself that he hated this place, but later came to realize that it was a defense mechanism. If he hated something, he would not miss it and if he did not miss it, he would not think of it. He would not think of what was inside it that made him even think about missing it in the first place.

His heart beat picked up its rhythmic pace as he saw the wooden gates. And with the white piece of fabric in his hand becoming wet from his perspiration, he was ready to hold it up to show his surrender.

As he stepped through the opening in the wood he heard the whispers. He felt the quick movements and heard the breath behind him as his body was paralyzed by a simple touch to his neck. He could not move and so he looked down at the cloth in his hand with his eyes. A porcelain masked man grabbed the cloth and nodded to the being that had touched his neck.

The blackness came and he dreamed of a life without being the avenger that he was.


	2. Chapter 1 Of New Darkness and Bindings

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 1

Of New Darkness and Bindings

When he awoke he wasn't entirely sure he wasn't still asleep. It was dark. The air was dark. His sight was dark. His breath was dark. It was all darkness.

He felt the cloth around his eyes and the rope around his wrists. No, he was not still sleeping. He could feel the wood underneath him and where his fingers could reach to touch. He was sitting on a chair.

The air around him was stale and it was damp. It was underground perhaps and it was used often but never cleaned. The floor was hard beneath his feet and he could feel the course rope around his ankles.

He could break these bindings and he knew they knew. They were testing him to see if he would corporate or if he would fight them. He was being tested on his offering of the white cloth and reminded himself of the truth that clung to it.

He breathed in the stale oxygen and moved his head around to feel for the size of the room. He could not sense the walls around him but he knew they would set him in the center where he was easily seen.

They would ask him questions, he predicted and found that he was ready for them. He wanted to feel free before he died, he remembered.

They must have noticed that he was awake. He heard a heavy sounding door open and close in front of him and felt a familiar chakra enter the room. It was warm and it was something he had felt before but he could not place it. He assumed that it was possibly someone he had known before.

His mouth remained closed as he waited for the person to say something, anything to break the silence that covered him. He was not rewarded with the sound of a voice at first.

He heard a chair being scrapped across the floor. He determined that the chair was metal from the sound and the floor was probably made from concrete or stone. The person sat on the chair and he could hear the weight of them. He predicted them to be of medium build with strength. They were undeniably male.

The chakra from the person was warm and it was immensely strong. He knew they would send someone strong to speak with him, fore he was strong enough to take down hundreds of men at a time himself.

He knew this person had strength and talent from the feel of the chakra and the knowledge that Tsunade was not an unintelligent woman. However, he did not feel threatened. He was fully ready for violence to strike him, but he did not feel this person would hurt him.

He let his breath out. He hadn't realized that he had been holding it. He could feel himself being watched and he desperately tried to see through the cloth with no success.

He felt the person sitting in the chair observing him for a long time. They watched every movement that he made with his head and every breath that he took into his lungs. He could feel their eyes. He could feel their glare.

The glare was hard and strong but it was not out of hatred. He had angered many people before and he had his own signature glare, so he understood when someone was looking at him like he was something that they wanted to see destroyed and discarded. This glare was not one of them.

This glare was simply a way of watching him. It was of pure concentration and it showed that the person was having a stream of thoughts rambling inside their own head.

He sighed in attempt to hear the person's voice. It did not come.

They sat still in silence for what seemed like an hour, he couldn't be sure. Without his vision, he had perception on everything around him and in contact with him but he could not estimate time increments.

Finally when the person was satisfied with his observation, he heard the weight on the chair lift and leave the room.

He did not quite understand. He thought that he would be interrogated and at some point tortured. None of it had come and he was left confused.

He also could not understand why _he _had not come. He had not burst through the walls and demanded to see him. He had not begged for his release and he had not heard his loud laughter echoing throughout the halls outside of the room. None of what he expected had happened.

He was left in the room alone with his own thoughts and decided that there was nothing about this yet that he was able to regret. Perhaps the one he wanted to come see him would be in tomorrow. Perhaps he hadn't even known of his return yet.

The door opened again and he stilled his thoughts. He smelled the food before it was even lifted to his mouth. When it was, he swiped his tongue against a plastic spoon and determined that it was liquid. It was soup and it was warm.

He opened his mouth and accepted the offer. He suddenly realized that his stomach had been aching from hunger since he had woken up. It was something else that he managed to push aside. Its priority was not high enough for him to care until now.

His stomach filled with the warm liquid. As he took each spoonful that he was offered he noticed that this was the same person from before. Still, he had said nothing and still he could not tell who this person was.

The way the spoon-fulls were lifted to his mouth, he knew the person was trying to be gentle. This man wanted him to be able to eat and he still did not want to harm him yet.

He didn't understand why. He didn't know why they hadn't done anything to him yet when they knew that they had the upper hand over him with his vision hidden and his appendages bound.

He had swallowed too quickly as he was lost in his thoughts and he coughed. It echoed around the room and he realized that he and his chair were probably the only objects in this room besides the other man and his own chair.

The cough caused some of the liquid to drip from the corner of his mouth. He was embarrassed. He was being fed by hand and he was making a mess. He was strong and talented and noble, he was not a messy eater.

The hand that fed him was gloved. Its cloth covered finger ran over the small spill and absorbed the error. It was soft with what felt like rubber over the tip. The gloves were meant for gripping things more easily while covering the skin from sight.

He had never worn these gloves and it had left his own hands covered in callouses and scars from cuts.

He was grateful to the hand for their care but he remained silent and continued to swallow what was given to him.

When the food stopped coming to his mouth, he heard the person leave again. This time he was sure that they would not be back anymore today.

He sat in his chair until he felt the drowsiness kick in and his eyes closed against their cloth prison. They had put something in the soup he was sure. He didn't understand but supposed it was the way they did things around here.


	3. Chapter 2 A Short Day

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 2

A Short Day and a Need to Have Company

That chakra from yesterday was back, or was it from the day before? He couldn't tell. It didn't matter.

They had been watching him again he assumed. Perhaps through a window in the room, he wasn't sure. He came to this conclusion because the man did not enter until he had moved his head around and shown that he was awake.

He sat still and behaved as he felt himself being watched again. This time the food was given to him first. Again it was liquid but it was different than the last time that he ate. And again it was given to him with care.

It was almost a gesture of affection when the food needed to be cleaned from his face. The fingers were kind but he also knew that they were potentially deadly. This was not a nurse and it was not someone weak. He was not stupid enough to think that they would send someone unskilled in even just to feed him.

The food was taken away but the man remained. He could smell the salt in the person's sweat and it made him want to encourage the man to sweat more. He felt the urge to taste it. Any action was better than to face this silence given to him.

He was ready to die and he did not understand why they didn't just get on with it. He did not understand why _he _hadn't come to see him. Perhaps his time here was still a secret. Perhaps he did not want to come and would not. Perhaps he had forgotten all about him.

He hoped this was not the case. If so then this had been for nothing and it would mean that the kept promise had meant nothing all. He felt like crying but he did not. He was too dignified and proud to do such a thing yet.

Yet. Yet. He knew it would come someday when he was ready to show his weakness, but not today.

He made a decision just then that it wouldn't come until _he _came to him. He would not cry until his interest saw him in this village, saw him in this chair, saw him being cooperative. He would cry and admit the reason he had come back. There was nothing left to lose in this. His pride would be bruised, but who needed pride in the afterlife.

He was ready to die after he had been seen by those blue eyes and so he would give it up before his death.

A sound was made just in front of him as the person got up to leave. It startled him and caused him to jump. He had forgotten he was not alone.

He did not want the person to leave yet. He did not want to be alone. He did not want to be watched from outside the room, he wanted to be able to feel the eyes on him. He panicked. He did not want the silence to become empty. At least with someone in the room with him, there was potential for it to be dissolved with a few words.

"Don't go," he pleaded. He had rarely ever had to ask for anything before, things were given to him or he simply took them.

"Stay with me a little longer." He felt confident enough to command the person. He could tell that they had stopped and turned around to look at him.

"Please don't leave me alone yet," he added in order to get what he wanted and he did.

The person sat back down in their chair but the silence still remained. In the quiet he could have sworn he heard a heartbeat. He could not tell if it was his own or the other man's, but it comforted him. It left him feeling lightheaded as he tried to keep up with it.

He followed each beat with his breath and soon found that he could not will the sleep to stay away any longer.


	4. Chapter 3 A Name and a Tipped Chair

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 3

A Name and a Tipped Chair

For days his time was spent this way. He would awaken to be fed by the ever silent person. He would be watched by them and observed. He would beg them not to leave as they attempted to exit the room and he would fall asleep listening to either his own heart or the other's.

Only when he felt the urge to use the bathroom did he encounter a different person. This one was female. He did not ask for permission, he held everything in until she walked into the room and told him it was time.

He was given only liquid to eat and so it was only liquid that left his body. This woman knew it would be. She would help him stand up from his wooden chair without untying his hands. He did not stand straight. It was more of a backwards bend, his hips jutting out towards her like some awkward mannequin.

Next she would slowly and professionally pull his pants down and allow him to urinate into something metal. It was a strange feeling but he supposed it was something that he had to get used to. He was not self-conscious but he did not enjoy this either.

When he was finished she would tell him that it was time for her to leave and she replaced his pants onto his hips where they hung and she sat him back down on his chair.

She always made a point to announce that she was leaving the room. He knew that she knew that he would be able to tell when she did so. He was a strong and intelligent ninja, he knew how to sense things that some could not. She knew this and yet she still excused herself each time.

He thought maybe it was because she also knew that he did not like to be alone. She probably knew how he had asked the man not to leave him on several occasions.

He did not know her. He hadn't met her before. He decided that she was kind to him and that's all that mattered.

His daily routine had not been altered until today. It started out the same as any other and it was beginning to end like one as well until the silence became broken and splintered like glass around him.

The man had spoken and it had startled him. He did not anticipate it as he had done for the first few days and the surprise left him feeling vulnerable.

"Uchiha Sasuke," was all that was said. Then, "Sasuke," again.

He moved his head toward the voice and strained his ears to pay attention because his name had come out like a whisper at first.

He sat there, his mouth closed and his ears listening and waiting for any other possible input. Then it was enough of that. He could not resist. He had to hear the voice again. He had to try to place it or memorize it because it was very possible that the sound would not come again.

Perhaps this was the day they had decided to kill him. Perhaps he was going to be given his sentence. Perhaps they did not wish to interrogate him at all and this was all just an act to leave him unstable and weak in his last moments of life as further punishment. It wouldn't matter if this was the case he reminded himself. The man he had truly wanted to come had not and would not and besides, he was ready to die.

"Yes?" he inquired wanting anything to come from the man's mouth.

"Sasuke," it said again and then it was gone. It would not come again for a long time he knew. He realized perhaps the man was not allowed to talk to him at all because he could feel the confusion radiating from the man as he stood from his metal chair and left the room.

"Sasuke," he whispered to himself in the empty room.

"Sasuke," his own name suddenly fascinated him. It was an uncommon name and it was a noble name. A noble name for a noble clan. No not noble as in righteous and kind. Noble as in a lot of money and a pretty face.

Yes, his noble name was for this type of noble man. He laughed. It was hilarious. This wealthy handsome man who had power and immense strength stored in his small and muscled body was stuck in a wooden chair in the middle of an empty room awaiting another man to come visit him so that he could die in peace. This man had droplets of stale urine soaked through his trousers and his body smelled of old sweat and spilled soup. This man was forced to sit in silence almost every second of his existence in this place and he could feel his mind beginning to change. This man was afraid of the own thoughts in his head that were forming and this man had begged another to stay with him out of fear of the quiet.

This was hysterically funny and so he laughed. It was a mixed laugh of highs and lows and it was not his own. It came out mangled like something broken and twisted like a snake. The laughter coiled out of his mouth as he hung his head.

"Sasuke," he shouted it now. He could not hold in the emotion that begged to break him. It was not one single emotion, but a mixture of them flowing out of him all at once in the form of his own name.

Then he was suddenly angry. The man spoke and it was only his name. The man had kept him for days, maybe weeks already and still the only thing he had ever said was his name.

It was the man's fault that he was here because the other people didn't matter. Nothing mattered to him anymore but this man that had visited him and sat with him and fed him and cleaned his face. He was all that mattered and so everything and everyone else was forgotten.

The fact that the only verbal interaction he had received from this person was his name and just that, did not satisfy him.

"After all this time the only thing you can say is my fucking name? My fucking name?" it bellowed out of him like the hatred he had once felt for his brother but burned more like the hatred he had once tried to feel for the blue eyes.

It burned and it licked flames into the silence. He could see inside his mind his words as they flickered bright and scorched away the darkness he imagined had surrounded him.

Then the words smoldered and turned to ash as he pictured them falling to the floor. He decided he was suddenly very sad and very alone when he got no reply.

"Are you disgusted with me that you don't reply? Do you think I am not intelligent that you don't speak? What am I now when I can do nothing but rot here?" it had a sobered tone in his voice and it felt like ice on his tongue.

He had never before questioned his self-worth. Any actions he had done in the past were things that he had decided for himself whether they were the best choices or not. He had never looked back on himself and questioned why he had done things because he remembered each reason on the top of everything. He had never seen himself in a reflection and asked if he was good enough or strong enough or better than anyone else, he just was because he was. There was no questioning it as he was doing now.

He decided he wanted the man to like him so that he would speak to him. Since the man was quiet from outside of the room it must have surely meant that he in fact did not think much of him.

He let out a yell of no particular word, just a long silence piercing yell. His mouth opened wide and his deep voice came tumbling out. If this were any other time it would have sounded like he was beginning to sing.

He stopped and closed his mouth. He held his breath until he knew his face would be red and he waited for a reaction from the man who he knew was watching him from outside his little prison. He waited and he held the air. He waited and he felt his lungs contracting. He waited but nothing happened.

He couldn't hold it any longer and so he let go. He took in as much oxygen as his lungs could handle and he gasped it in like he wouldn't survive without it.

He laughed again. Of course he wouldn't survive without it, it was air. It was crucial.

He rocked his chair. The sound of the legs hitting the floor repeatedly echoed through the quiet and begged it to go away. He rocked it hard back and forth until he fell forward. His hands were bound and so he could not catch himself.

He fell on his face, the chair behind him and his knees pressed hard into the floor. He waited for someone to come in and fix him.

They did not come. No one came. No one cared he supposed. He lay there and laughed some more for good measure and allowed his mind to take him into a dream where he was training to walk up trees for the first time.


	5. Chapter 4 Time To Think

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 4

Time To Think

The next day he remained toppled over in his chair and alone. No one came to see him. The man did not come to watching him or feed him. The girl did not come to help him either.

He was left there in this uncomfortable position to think about all the things that he missed and all of the things that he could not have.

For the millionth time he thought of _him_ and the possible reasons why he hadn't come. He supposed that he didn't matter to him anymore. Perhaps the time they had spent together fighting and training with one another wasn't enough to keep him mattering to him.

Then he thought of the other possibilities. He had tried to kill the other boy on several occasions. Well no, he didn't really try to kill him. He had made it look and sound like he had wanted to kill him, but he hadn't actually desired to. He definitely could and he let him know it too, but he hadn't honestly tried to succeed. He had done this so that the boy wouldn't get in his way.

He killed anything that got in his way and he didn't want to spill his blood. So he had injured him and had allowed nasty hurtful things to fall from his mouth and into the boy's ear to prevent him from trying to stop him. It hadn't worked but it was his strategy.

The boy did get in his way and so he had injured him again and again, trying to remove the other from his path. He didn't really want to kill him because he knew that although he had an ultimate goal, he didn't think he could go through with it and continue to live the life he had if the boy no longer existed.

He had been in love, he reminded himself to make him feel better about his irrational way of thinking back then. Yes, he had been in love with the boy that was his rival and the boy that dared to stand in his way just because he had wanted Sasuke to stay.

He had wondered why. He had wondered what the reason for wanting him to stay was. Each time he had asked the boy himself, he was always told it was because they were friends.

Honestly the selfishness and egotistic streak inside him did not want to hear this because he had wanted more. He had wanted the boy to loudly exclaim in his bold way that he was in love with Sasuke and needed him by his side for all eternity and afterwards. He wanted those words because he wanted to be loved back.

The avenger part of him did not want to hear the boy's reply either because he wanted to be detached from him and his naïve ways. He needed to be separated from everything he had known so that he could accomplish his goals uninterrupted and unhindered.

The small part of him that was able to look on the brighter side of things was rarely used and almost never had any input into his thoughts, but it had been quite satisfied and happy with the reply. It was happy because it meant that Sasuke had a place somewhere with the boy and he did have a strong bond with him.

It was not enough though. It was never enough. Nothing was enough for Sasuke.

The boy had come after him with full force and with such determination that at one time he could have sworn that it was more than friendship between them. That time was over now though and the cold from the floor seeped into the skin on his face.

This cold he felt reminded him of the cold he had felt under that bridge. The girl had tried to kill him and the boy had come to the rescue. He had begged Sasuke to return as he often did, but there was something more to it. The boy had a secret and he was going to share it.

The words were never spoken however, as he was whisked away by the other Uchiha that had been left at the time. He was so cold after they departed that he almost begged Mandra, in his delirious and injured state to take him back to the boy and leave him. He almost begged for the man to let him go home, but he didn't. At the time, being on the man's side was a decision that he had made for himself and so it could not be taken back.

He had cried that night. He had cried for the potential loss of his eyes and for the loss of those words that had not even come out of the goofy grinned mouth. He wondered how you could miss something that hadn't ever occurred.

He had cried then but he would not cry now. He would not cry for the dampness of the floor. He would not cry because _he _hadn't visited today either.

He surely hated him, he supposed. He hated him just as the man that normally came hated him too. He would have been in to feed him if he hadn't. Hell, the woman that helped him hated him too.

He realized that he suddenly needed her at that thought. It was no use to bother calling out to her. He had never done so before because she just knew and if she just knew, she would have been in today.

He rationalized that she was not coming and so like a helpless thing, he soiled his trousers and begged the liquid not to run into his face. He felt luck for a small instant when it did not. It stopped at his chest and soaked into his shirt.

He felt dirty and disgusting. He wanted to be clean and he wanted to lie down. He no longer wanted to sit in this chair and he no longer wanted to have his face planted into the floor.

He tried to push himself up right with his feet but it was pointless. He hadn't even believed it was possible to do so like this, but wouldn't have been able to if it was. He was too weak from days spent ingesting only soup once a day and going without anything today.

Instead he pushed himself and rocked from side to side until the chair was sideways on the floor.

His shoulder and side of his face now touched the floor. His hip lay still against the concrete and his hands touched the cool surface.

This was better than being face down, he supposed. At least if he had to use the bathroom again it would not run in his face.

He wanted the man's company. He wanted the gentle hands to wipe his face and he wanted the eyes to see him. He wanted his name to be said again and he wanted to ask the person questions.

But what he wanted did not matter right now because he wanted a lot of things that were much more important than not wanting to be alone. He wanted _him_ to visit him. He wanted the teacher to lecture him. He wanted the healer to ease his mind with her green chakra.

He wanted out of this chair and this room. He wanted the blindfold removed and his sight to be returned. He wanted his freedom back and he wanted to die in peace. He wanted to see all that he was missing in this life and he wanted to hear the sounds of the outside world.

He stopped. He believed in the afterlife. During his short lifetime he had seen and done things that were considered horrific. He had hurt so many people and he had been the cause of so much pain. He contemplated what his afterlife would be like. Surely he would have to face all of the things he had done and he would have to experience all of the pain he had inflicted on others for an eternity.

If that was what to come then perhaps he was already there. And if he was already there and he was craving to see the sky and the trees and the way people moved as they walked, then maybe he did not want to die even in peace. Perhaps he was not truly ready to die at all.

This disturbed him because it was something he thought he could handle. Apparently it was not. He wanted to live and he wanted out of here. He wanted that chance to start over again that he had denied himself and he wanted to find out why the boy had stopped chasing him.

It was an answer to a question that he needed desperately, he decided. Nothing else would help him.

It twisted his empty stomach and caused it to turn and constrict. The thought of dying here like this made him gag.

He vomited up what felt like water and coughed as if he was choking. The mess landed outside of his mouth as he heaved and ran in a puddle to his face.

His chest and crotch were covered in his urine and his face was covered in his vomit. He threw up again and winced at the smell. He was in pain.


	6. Chapter 5 Questions And Affection

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 5

Questions and a Small Affection

Someone had entered the room the next day or the next. Again, his time perception was distorted.

He had heard the door open and close and he could feel him moving toward him. Next, he could feel himself and the chair he was bound to being lifted up into the air and then placed back in its original position so that he now sat upright again.

The urine had long ago dried and the vomit had crusted on his face. The person wiped his face with gentle hands.

He realized that this person was the man. The hands were the same and the chakra had the same warmth and power.

The man did not clean him other than his face. He could hear him sit in his usual chair and watch him with his usual stare. It would not be a normal day between them though, Sasuke would not allow it.

Inside his head he was a jumbled mess and he couldn't be sure if he wasn't dreaming, but in his words he was as collected and calculated as ever with a slight tilt in his voice.

"I decided that I am not ready to die after all," the words made him feel less of an empty shell.

He allowed the silence to overtake him for a minute or two and waited for a reply. He wanted to hear the man speak again.

It did not happen and so he decided that he would keep a conversation with himself as the man sat watching him. A conversation with himself would be better than no conversation at all.

"Before I came here I had decided that I was ready to die. I was not afraid of anything anymore, I wanted to be at peace." This last sentence may not have made sense to anyone but himself but it didn't matter. This was more for himself than for others. He would speak to himself in the man's presence so that he could trick himself into thinking it wasn't only for him to hear.

"I came here to keep a promise someone made, before I die. I thought it was for the best but perhaps it's not. The promise keeper doesn't even know a promise has been kept and so I suppose it will be buried with me when this ends." He didn't care that his words would sound strange to the man. This too did not matter, speaking was making him feel better. He had allowed himself to be taken and bound in this room to talk in the first place, hadn't he?

"I am here, in this place that I swore never to return to because it was the least I could do. There was nothing else I _could_ do, you see? I thought perhaps appearing from nowhere would bring someone comfort somewhere but I don't think it has and it makes this worthless."

"I am nothing but a shell this way, in this silence, in this dark, in this loneliness. I am useful but I will never be a tool again because there is nothing else left to build. I have never needed comfort or interaction before but I find myself lonely right now and it disturbs me."

"I am not the same as I was, in this darkness and I miss the things that haunt me in my thoughts so much that I will break without a hand laid on me. I have consumed so much power and absorbed it but I no longer have anything to use it for. Despite being without purpose or balance, I am no longer ready to die and I don't wish to leave this world for the next. I am not frightened but I am confused, and this is what truly scares me."

"I am dying on the inside in my head and this is what is sad. This is what makes me want to cry. But I won't. Not for you and not for myself. I will not cry until the promise that was kept is known about. And I will not be ready to die until then either." He paused his long rant and took in a deep breath as he listened.

He waited for a sound as he had waited before. The sound had never come when he willed it to and yet he was still disappointed this time when the silence remained. He no longer had his wits about him or the strength to be able to detect the man's feelings or wave of thoughts as he had been able to before.

He felt colder this way although the words were out. He made a decision then that he would allow the words to tumble from his mouth and spill like heavy coins whenever he knew someone was there to hear him.

He would tell all that he was thinking so that when he died like this, he would not feel quite so alone. Perhaps he would leave an impression on someone as he left this world.

The man continued to watch him until he could no longer feel his presence. He hadn't even heard him leave his chair or the door open and close, although he knew that he was alone once again in the room.

The next day was different. He could feel it from the moment he woke up. He heard the man walk into the room and take his place at his usual chair. Instead of silence Sasuke began his rant of words.

"I thought you wouldn't come. I thought you would skip a day because you hated me." His voice was in a whine.

The quiet lasted only a few seconds.

"I could never hate you," a voice said. He had heard it before, somewhere long ago but he could not place it. His mind was too fuzzy to do so.

"Then why didn't you come? I waited and I couldn't breathe and I couldn't hold it any longer and I couldn't make my stomach stop clenching, but you didn't come." He wanted answers. He wanted the man to know that he had been disappointed.

"I'm sorry I didn't come, Sasuke." It was solid and unwavering but not unkind entirely.

"Are you sorry because you are obligated to be or are you sorry because you've had to clean up my mess?" He did not ask if the man was genuinely sorry because he did not think it was a possibility.

"I am sorry because you were in pain and I did not come." The answer settled in his ears and made him calmer.

"I am nothing like this. I am nothing at all." The loneliness returned and he pleaded with himself not to show this particular weakness but it was too late.

"You are not nothing. You are just without your senses."

"Why am I here? Why aren't you asking me questions and making me swear to tell you everything?" His question hung in the air. It was not disorganized and it made sense, he had made sure to take his time conducting it.

"You are here because it's where you have to be right now. I don't have to ask you because you will tell me on your own." the answer made him angry.

"Do not assume things you don't understand. Do not assume that you understand me." His voice was raised. He closed his mouth and withdrew. He did not want the man to leave.

"It's not an assumption. I know that you will tell me because you need to and I do understand you. I understand you better than you understand yourself sometimes." He did not elaborate and so Sasuke was left with nothing to respond with.

"Do you want to tell me what has happened since your time away from Konoha right now, or would you like to do it later?"

He thought the question over and flipped it around trying to find the best place in his brain to place it. He decided that the faster he told the man, the closer he would be taken out of this place. The first thing that he would do when he was out of this particular environment was to ask for the dobe.

"I left to find power but I had to extract it from the snake before it was mine."

"You mean Orochimaru?" he was asked.

"Yes the creature wanted me but I took him instead." It was a whisper as it left his lips.

"What do you mean by that?"

"He wanted my body, but I took his power first instead."

Nothing was said in response to this so he kept going.

"He's dead. The snake shriveled and twisted as it coiled and died wrapped around itself. I did not bury it and so it was taken. Its cells and what had made it a life were stolen from it." He hung his head at the memory of his short battle with the snake Sanin inside his mind. He remembered the white snake body that was once Orochimaru and remembered the fear he had instilled in the legendary man.

"Do you know who stole Orochimaru's body?"

"Yes. I know, you know, everyone knows. He used it to make himself a hybrid between it and him. He was shy but he was power hungry. His cells were weak so he was taken over."

"Can you tell me who it was?" the man asked in a more gentle way than Sasuke had expected.

"Kabuto, the doctor. He was a healer but he did not heal me. His hands burned where they ran over me and I tried to avoid him when I could." he remembered how the white haired man had placed his hands on him to check him for injuries but kept them on him longer than necessary. At the time he could feel the want in the other man and he was disgusted. Yes indeed, he had tried to avoid him when he could.

"He touched you?" It was a simple question and he thought he heard emotion behind the question, but it was probably his imagination.

"Not in the way that he wanted to. He's dead now." He stated it matter of factly. He knew this man must have already known but he said it anyway.

"How did he die?"

"His blood ran out of him when my katana pierced him. It hurt me at first, although I do not regret it. He disgusted me, but I do not like to use such unskilled tricks on my opponents." He tilted his head as he said this.

"What trick did you use?" The man was curious and Sasuke felt empowered. He reached out for this attention and he held it tightly against him.

"I waited until he came to me at night when they made the exchange and then I stabbed him. I didn't let him talk. Sometimes I think about what it was that he wanted to say."

The thoughts in his head were becoming less mixed up as he spoke and so his thinking patterns began to settle, but did not quite return to normal.

"What switch did they make?"

"They switched me. Kabuto gave up the bodies of the dead ones in exchange for me."

"What did he want with you?"

"I don't know. I don't care. Everyone wants me for something. I suppose not anymore though. Just when I was ready to be wanted, I found out that I wasn't anymore."

The man ignored this last statement and continued with his questions, "Who was the man that switched you?"

"You know who, they all do. It was the only other Uchiha left. He used me. He's dead now."

"Uchiha Mandra was found with his neck sliced and both his eyes cut out. Did you do that?"

He thought about it. He couldn't decide whether he wanted the man to know that he was capable of something so cruel or not. He wanted this man to like him. He may not like him if he knew.

It didn't matter. _He_ would not like it, but this man probably didn't care. Mandra was not someone the world would miss anyway.

"Yes. He hurt me so I hurt him back. Itatchi wanted me to do it."

"Uchiha Itatchi has been dead for a few years now and his body was reanimated during the war and destroyed. How do you know that he wanted you to kill Mandra?"

It surprised him. It had been almost two years since the war and since everything had ended, and still he hadn't known that his brother's corpse had been reanimated. He was angry. He would have wanted to talk to him one last time. He would have wanted to apologize to him as he did many times within his lonely thoughts.

"My brother was reanimated?"

"He was. Then he was destroyed. Answer the question." The reply was harsher than all the rest before them and he was stunned. He had expected a kind answer from the man and since he did not, he allowed the silence to grow once more.

He supposed the man had felt sorry and so he listened as the man had started again, "Yes he was reanimated. He asked about you. He wanted to know if you were alright." The voice was much sadder than he had expected from this stranger not stranger.

"And what was he told?" he wanted to know what he brother knew about him.

"He was told the truth, that no one knew what had become of you."

"Who was it that he asked?" He knew his brother. Even when he had hated him, he knew his brother. His brother would not ask someone that hadn't known Sasuke or Itatchi about Sasuke at all.

"That's not something I can tell you right now. Please answer my previous question." The plead was also not expected. It was polite and it was needy. He liked being needed.

"He made my eyes set him on fire whenever I saw Mandra's eyes. He did it when he touched me before he died. He wanted me to burn him with my black flames." It was the truth. He could remember sitting up from the futon with a dizzy head and a shocked expression when he had heard Mandra yell and curse with his skin burning.

"What about Danzo?"

"I killed all the eyes in his arm and allowed him to blow himself up."

"He had eyes in his arms?"

"Yes, just one of the arms. They were from my clan, they were special. He used them until they died and then he blew himself up to kill me but I am not dead. Maybe I am and this is a dream I'm stuck in."

"Is there anyone else that you've killed?" The question was heavy. It made him uncomfortable.

"No. I hurt people though. They were in my way and I had to have them removed."

No more questions came. It was quiet. Neither of them spoke and he suddenly became nervous.

Then he heard the man stand up and turn for the door. This made him unhappy. He was not ready to stop talking. He was not ready to be alone yet.

"Don't leave yet please," it was a plea. It was needy and came out like a whine. It was pathetic and it was beautiful all in the same.

"I'm getting you some food."

He felt relieved. He would be back. The man would return and he would be able to fill his stomach. Maybe he would bring _him_ or one of the other two with him.

The soup was warm and it did fill him. It filled his stomach with steam and he felt the urge to allow himself to fall against the man's shoulder as the hand reached out with the spoon. He could not see the man but he could feel that he was content as of the moment.

He sensed that the man was pleased with his confessions for the day. He took the opportunity to smile.

"Why are you smiling?" The man asked.

"Because you are. I can feel it in the way you are sitting. You are pleased with me and I am happy."

The man said nothing and continued to feed Sasuke. When the food was gone, the fingers once again caressed the side of his lips to clean up the mess.

This time they stayed longer on his face than they had ever before and they softly rubbed a small circle on the skin. The rubber was rough against his face but he found that he didn't mind.

Then the man stood and left for good this time. Sasuke could feel that he would not be back until tomorrow. He supposed the girl would return as well and so he waited patiently for her with the smile still on his lips. Perhaps he would smile for her too.


	7. Chapter 6 A Fox And A Confession

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 6

A Fox and A Confession

Each day that the man came he asked several questions and each day when he left, Sasuke smiled for him.

At one time, he felt brave enough to ask the man how long he had been in the room like this and was given no reply and so he estimated. He guessed that he had been there for at a little over a month.

The more he spoke to this man the more he began to anticipate his return. He decided that he most likely would never have another companion and so he pretended that the man was one.

They spoke about the things he had been asked and they talked about the little thoughts that Sasuke allowed to wander into the conversation. His future was not discussed and he did not ask.

He came to respect the man for the strength he could sense coming off of him and at times he could swear that he reminded him of _him_.

He supposed that it was his imagination. He supposed that it was his own desires to see him that made his mind become convinced that this man was similar to him.

He became brave enough to ask for the man's name. What was the point of having a companion if you did not know their name?

"Some call me Fox because of the face on my mask."

"Why would you pick that animal out of them all to wear in this village? Are you not aware of the history that comes with it?"

"Yes I am." The man had moved closer to his face than ever before and the next words came out like a whisper and a breath. "That is exactly why I picked it."

And so Fox the man had become. It was a good name. It was something he would remember and it was simple. He was not angry that a real one was not provided and he understood. Once you entered the Anbu, you're given name no longer mattered. You were now a tool and you would be named after the mask that you wore.

The days stretched on and Fox had begun to show him a small amount of slight affection. He assumed it was not allowed and this excited him. This made it more meaningful. They were forbidden gestures of kindness and Fox had put himself at risk just to give them to him.

He began hinting and urging the gestures to come.

"I missed you Fox." He had said, his mouth in his signature smirk for the first time in years. It was something that he had no longer allowed himself to do since he had left the village.

"Sasuke," the fox said and then the gloved fingertips were placed on his face.

After this gesture was given, things went back to the way that they had always been between them. Questions were asked and answered. Food was distributed, the hand was on the side of his lips, and then the silence returned.

He had craved more. He had wanted the gesture to be longer and more often than once a day. He scolded himself. If _he_ knew he would be disgusted with him. He would laugh at him for being low enough to want his integrator to show him affection. He would be angry that Sasuke was not acting like himself.

He had to be honest with himself while he was on the subject. Many times when Fox had touched him in this way, he had pretended that it was _him_ instead. This offered him a chance to daydream and fulfill his long ago longing for love from his rival.

He decided that he was still in love. He decided that even if he died here, he would tell someone that he loved the boy before his last breath.

Maybe they would tell him. Maybe he would understand that the promise was kept. Maybe he would regret not coming to see him. This last thought would satisfy him, he was a selfish bastard after all.

First he would indulge himself in his fantasies the next time that Fox touched him. The man would not care what name he called him, he would just be doing his job. He doubted Fox would even notice.

Using _his_ name would make him feel like he had actually interacted with him and it would also allow him to feel free. His love was always a secret to the outside world and it was no use to hide it any longer.

Today he would do it, he would say the name he had not said in such a long time. He sat in his chair in his soiled clothes and his dirty flesh and waited.

When the sound of the door finally came he was ready.

"I was waiting for you, you took such a long time to come back." he tilted his head up and imagined that Fox had stilled in his path over to him to look at him.

Just as he had done in greeting the last few days, he reached his fingers out to caress the side of Sasuke's face. A covered thumb brushed his jaw line.

His eyes were covered and it was already dark but he closed his eyes anyway. He opened his mouth for a few seconds and then indulged himself.

"Mmm…Naruto," he breathed and he pushed his face further into the hand that offered him warmth.

Fox said nothing but withdrew his hand. He acted as if nothing had changed and sat upon his chair for the day. The line of questions began.

He was slightly disappointed and pleased at the same time. It had felt good to say the name. He had felt pleasure associating the name with the affection that was given to him, but he felt unhappy that he had not invoked any kind of response in Fox.

He had wanted him to ask about _him_. He had wanted for him to be appalled or for him to laugh, or for him to do anything at all.

The reaction did not come of course and he did not pursue it. He answered the questions as he always did and he decided he would use that name each time it happened.

The next day and the day after, he did this. He said the name and he waited. Nothing happened and so he settled for the personal enjoyment he felt when he was left all alone.

Within his head he imagined that things had turned out differently. He pretended that he had stayed in the village and his family was all still alive, including his anki. He pretended that he was not alone in this world and he imagined that he had told his rival about his feelings.

He fooled himself into thinking that the feelings would be returned and he could swear that he could feel _his _ hands on his face instead of Fox's and he could whisper the name into his ears instead of into that of the other man's.

He moved on and imagined that he would one day show up and rescue him. That he would take off the cloth covering his eyes and he would unbind his hands and ankles. He would lift him out of the chair and he would carry him out of this place.

His fantasies became his dreams and soon he did not want to wake up as he began to see them each time that he closed his eyes. He wanted more time with the dobe in his mind, just a few minutes for everything to be the way that it wasn't.

Fox came earlier than usual today. He did not touch Sasuke's face. He sat in his chair and he stared at him as he used to.

Finally he spoke, "I have no more questions for you. They'll decide what they will do with you soon."

He knew it would come. He knew they would make a decision and he knew that it was something that he would have to face. Perhaps at the trial, if there was a trial at all, his idiot would be there and maybe he would get a glimpse of him.

"When will they decide?"

"Soon. A few days. They are going over it now."

"Will I die?" it was not mournful. It was not sad. It was calm and it was serious. He would mourn later in his silent darkness.

"I don't know. Do you want to?"

He thought about it. He thought about how he had been so ready to die the day he had come here. He had been so ready to leave this world as soon as he knew that his rival had known of his return. He thought of all the resolutions he had come to during his time here and decided that no, he was not ready to die right now in this moment.

He supposed that although he no longer had a purpose to live for or a goal to work towards, perhaps he would be able to find one.

"No. I don't want to die. I want it to be different than it is and than it was. It doesn't matter if it's better, I just want it to be different." It was the truth, he concluded and he said nothing more.

He could feel Fox's stare and he could tell that there were no more words to offer Sasuke right now, so he made another decision. He could very well die soon and so it was probably a good idea to follow through with another decision he had made.

He would say it for the first time ever out loud and it would no longer be a secret. He opened his mouth and allowed the words to float out.

"I loved him."

"Who?" Fox was sincerely curious. Sasuke felt the tone of the voice was urgent almost, but still the same as ever.

He did not directly answer the question. Instead, he allowed the emotions to entangle in the words. He spoke as much truth as he could.

"I loved him. I never told him. He was too much of an idiot for me to bother before. He wasn't good enough for me because I thought nothing was at the time. Now I guess I am not good enough for him." he hung his head, felt his eyes sting behind the cloth.

"I had expected him to come. I've waited every day since the first for him to come, just as I've waited for you. I had hoped he'd know I was here and he'd realize that he had kept the promise that he made a long time ago."

"He promised to bring me back here. He said he'd do it with all the strength he had. Once, he even said that he would bring me back if he was in pieces. I wanted him to know that I'm back because of him and that he didn't even have to try this time."

The water built up and hung in heavy droplets in the corners of his eyes. His eyes burned now and he knew that the tears would come and there would be no stopping them.

"I ran from him because I had a goal. I wish that I could regret achieving it, but I don't. I regret not taking him with me though. I regret doing it alone and I regret the space I created between us. I attempted to sever all the bonds I had with him because I didn't want him to get hurt. I loved him and I decided that he was mine and that I was the only one allowed to hurt him. I would allow no one else the privilege."

He paused and let the words sink into the darkness around him. He waited a few seconds and then continued.

"I tried not to think of him. I had pushed all thoughts of him to the back of my mind, hoping that they'd just fade away in time. I could never erase him from my subconscious thoughts and each time I gave myself advice, it came out sounding like his voice. I tried to hate him but it just hurt me more than it probably should have."

"Each time that I saw him, I ached all over. I wanted to turn around and follow him as he called out to me. I wanted to come home and I wanted him to love me back, but to leave was a decision that I made and I do not go back on the decisions that I make for myself." The tears fell now in streams. They were hot and they were welcome. He knew they would not stop until there was nothing left to cry about and so he let them be.

"Fuck, I wanted to talk to him so badly. I wanted to have a real conversation with him, not one like our little fights that we used to have. I used to talk to him when I was alone, I think. I don't remember much of the time that I lived underground in those tunnels, but I'm pretty sure I remember talking to him. But I'm not stupid, I know he wasn't really there, so I suppose I was talking to myself."

He shook his head. He didn't care what Fox thought of him because he was probably going to die soon and the man he loved did not come this whole time. This was the only way _he _would learn his feelings, that is if Fox would report it back to him.

"I wanted to tell him that I missed him. I missed him every day that I allowed myself to think of him or when a memory came up uninvited. The first thing I thought after I killed Itatchi was to tell him. I wanted to tell him that I had done it and that it was over. It was a lie, there's was still a lot to do, but it's how I felt at the time. Then later when I realized what my brother really was and understood what it was that I had really done, I wanted to have him beside me to tell me I wasn't horrible. I am and I know it, but he would have told me otherwise."

His breath was fast and his lungs could not keep up. The liquid ran down his face from underneath the blindfold where it had been saturated with his tears. His body shook with full sobs now and he still did not try to stop it. There was no response from the other man.

"It's pathetic and weak and I know I don't deserve it, but I wanted him to hold me. I wanted him to change the thoughts I had in my mind and I wanted him to take care of me. I lost myself and became something I never thought was possible. I was a dog and I wanted him to take over the control of my leash. I went insane, I think and I think if I had had him to question me, to ground me I wouldn't have been able to let myself get so far gone."

"I was too full of myself to turn around and so it all ended up a mixed mess that somehow got tangled around me."

He couldn't breathe and he paused. He was sure that the other man was still in the room listening to him but he could not determine if Fox had cared or not.

"I loved him and I wish that I could go back and rearrange things. I wish I would have told him how I felt when we were kids. It may have complicated things but at least I would have known how he felt about me. It doesn't matter to me if he doesn't feel the same, really. The thought of that doesn't stop me from wanting him to feel the way I think he should. I wish I could go back and root myself here so that the will to leave hadn't been so strong."

He calmed himself. The water still flowed from his eyes, but it was slower and it allowed him to breathe easier.

"He tried though. He tried to create a stronger bond and a deeper friendship. I didn't let him and I wish that I had. Maybe if I did, he would have been able to keep me here. If I would have stayed, none of this would have turned out the way it has and I would not be dying soon."

He became quiet. His speech at been lengthy and wordy. It had held all of his emotions and it was all that he could offer. He waited for Fox to make a sound, any implication that he had been paying attention but there was none.

Minutes passed and the silence grew. He hung his head as the tears stopped completely and had begun to dry on his skin.

"I loved him. I still love him, but it doesn't matter. He didn't come and he won't. I told you because I thought that maybe there was a chance that you'd tell him for me. In reality it doesn't matter if you tell him or not, it just satisfies me to know that there's a possibility that he'll know. And if I think he'll find out some day, then I won't put up a fight when they sentence me to death. And if they don't, which they will, then at least I will always be able to day dream that he will visit me if they lock me up."

"I love him and I'm going to pretend like you will tell him for me because that's all I can do to make myself feel better, although I know I don't deserve such a solace."

That was it. That was all of it. There was no more to say. His throat was hoarse and scratchy. His heart felt lighter and his stomach emptier. His breath left him feeling cold and the silence from the other man left him feeling betrayed.

He sat and he waited but nothing came. The wet blindfold became sticky and uncomfortable. Then he heard Fox stand and leave the room without a word.

He supposed there was nothing he could say to him. Perhaps he was disgusted with him. Perhaps he didn't care if Sasuke felt better or not. Suddenly he wanted to cry more.

But no more tears came that day. He had exhausted himself. That was more than he had said in years at a time and that was certainly the first time he had cried since he watched his brother die. Yes, he had mourned the death of the man that was once his anki. He hadn't expected himself to, but he had and he was displeased that this feeling right now hurt him worse than taking the life.

He was tired and he knew there would be no more visits today and so he allowed himself to fall asleep imagining a boy with blue eyes.


	8. Chapter 7 He Becomes the Prey

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 7

He Becomes the Prey

Fox did not come the next day or the next. Instead someone new came.

As he stepped into the room, Sasuke felt the difference right away. Whereas Fox's chakra was warm, this man's was cool. This man was not mean but he was not kindhearted either. It was a familiar aura of energy around the man and he realized that his was the one that had made the darkness come. He was the one to paralyze him.

He was calm and collected as Fox had been but much quicker to answer his questions.

"Where is Fox?" Sasuke heard his own mouth say.

"He had some business to take care of, he will not be here today." The voice was intelligent and composed, it too was familiar but unplaceable.

"Where is he?"

"It's not for you to know."

"Will he be back?" He was suddenly worried. He wanted Fox to enter the room and he wanted him now. He wanted him to return, he did not want to lose someone that he had become comfortable with.

"I do not know. Does it matter?"

"It does, it matters." He whispered this more to himself than this new man.

As the man sat in the chair across from him he noticed that he was smaller than Fox and probably thinner. He thought that perhaps this man was the same build and height of himself.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"That too, is not for you to know." The voice was slightly colder than it had been before and he supposed that the man was not lying. It was not his right to know anyone's name.

"Then what can I call you?"

"My mask is a hawk because like the predator itself, I always catch my prey." The answer was something he could tell that the man was proud of. This man wanted him to know that he was skilled and strong.

"Hawk," he said aloud to himself to memorize it. "Have they decided yet?"

"No. They are still discussing it."

"When is my trial?"

"There will be none. They are making a final decision in the next few days."

They sat in silence just as it had been with Fox most days. He was uncomfortable but he knew he knew this man as he had known that he once knew Fox and so he let his breath come and go in a normal and slow pace.

For two days it was like this until the third.

This time the fox had returned and he was different. He was frenzied and he moved fast around the room. He paced around his wooden chair as if he was stalking Sasuke as his prey.

His eyes never left his body and he understood that something was wrong.

"Fox? You're making me nervous. Please sit down." He found that saying please with this man often got him what he wanted. It didn't work this time. Instead he felt a hand around his neck.

He didn't move. He let the hand rest around his throat and he allowed the fingers to squeeze. The pressure became unbearable but he let it continue.

He allowed Fox to squeeze him until he began gasping for breath. The pressure was released but not the neck itself. It was held into place afterward. He assumed that maybe this was a test.

He willed himself to stay completely still and wished that he could see the man's face. The hand was removed and replaced down at his ankles as he felt the man crouch down on one knee.

The rope was removed and his feet were free from one another. He did not move them. He held still and kept quiet.

Next the hands reached around him and untied his wrists from the back of the chair. They were secured again together though, keeping him bound. The blind fold was kept in place. This disappointed him. He had wanted to see.

He wondered if this was it, if the decision had been made. He took a deep breath and waited.

He felt the fox's breath on his neck and felt the heat in the bare fingertips, he had an idea about what was going to happen next. He found that he did not mind. He wanted affection and he wanted it without prejudice about who it came from. He knew the gloves had been removed for the other man's benefit rather than his own.

He felt himself being lifted from sitting position and felt his legs ache from the stiffness of sitting for so long. A hand was around his waist, helping him to stand straight. The other went to the back of his head and pulled him in.

His lips were crushed against the fox's then and there was nothing that he could do but to kiss back. It didn't matter, this encounter. It was nothing because it wasn't the one he loved. He decided to pretend it was though because, again, he wanted the affection.

He felt disgusting. He smelled. He still wore his soiled clothing and he was weak. He felt like throwing up again and thought better of it as his mouth was continuously attacked.

The kisses were animalistic and raw. They were full of need and they were painfully heart breaking. Fox's heart was just as broken as his own and he became confused. He supposed that perhaps the verdict had been decided and that maybe this animal had begun to like him much too much and didn't want to let go. Maybe it had nothing to do with him. Maybe it was someone else's doing. It didn't matter if it was Sasuke that the fox was touching right now because inside his mind it was not fox that was touching him either.

Perhaps the fox felt that he was entitled to this privilege. Sasuke would let him because he was sure that he was going to die soon and because it was an opportunity to pretend that the man was someone else. He would let him because there was nothing else he could do. When he had first arrived here he was strong, skilled, and highly deadly. He was nothing like that now. He was weak, hungry, and only half of who he used to be. There was nothing else to do but allow it to happen.

He allowed the kisses to continue and wished that he could reach out to the other man. He wanted to feel the face that was pressed into his own. He wanted to trace the forehead and feel for worry lines or arched brows in anger. He wanted to be able to tell some kind of facial expression.

His shirt was lifted up to his neck and his chest was covered in the quick and needy movements of fingertips. They stroked every bare surface that they could reach and it ignited a heat in the pit of his stomach. He allowed his neck to be ravished by that harsh mouth and marked by those vicious teeth.

He let himself be picked up and carried against the wall. He felt his pants being pushed down his thighs and he felt them tangle around his ankles. One pants leg was yanked over his foot, leaving one leg bare and cold in the damp.

The temperature did not last though because as Fox pressed his body into his and he felt that hardness against him he could not help but heat up inside.

It caused his own arousal to rise and fill with blood. It rubbed against the stomach of the fox and it brought him a small amount of pleasure.

There were no words exchanged and there were no questions to ask. Sasuke allowed the other man to take control and sensed that this pleased his partner.

He heard Fox spit into his hand and then he felt the stiff member against his entrance. The animal would not prepare him. He would take him raw and dry. He realized then that he had wanted it to hurt.

He had wanted Sasuke to feel pain from this. He wanted Sasuke to feel like he was breaking. Perhaps this man hated him. Maybe it was only a test to show his dominance over Sasuke. He did not understand the reason why but he definitely understood it for what it was.

He was not afraid. He had never done this before. He had never had interest in anyone but _him_ before and this was a new experience. He understood the mechanics of the act and that was all that mattered.

He was not afraid. It would hurt and it would sting. It would make him feel hollow but he was not afraid.

As the head slipped inside him he howled with the pain. The hurt splintered through him and caused tears to burn his eyes. It slid into him deeper as he continued to wail. He could feel his skin ripping apart and the blood beginning to break through.

He was not hushed and he was not scolded. He was pushed harder into the wall and entered as deep as possible. His spine dug into the concrete wall and he decided to focus on this pain instead. He faintly felt the blood flowing down his legs now.

The fox moved in and out of him in a fast pace from the beginning. He thrust himself deep into Sasuke as he leaned in for a kiss. Sasuke wished that he could see the face in front of his own. He wanted to see the desire and pleasure that he knew would be displayed there.

His own member was grabbed a little too roughly. A hand gripped him and pumped. He could not help it. It felt good and he became hard again quickly.

The pain faded away after some time and he began to feel less uncomfortable. He wrapped his legs around the fox's waist and ground himself down, moving in fast circles.

The animal moaned and he could not help himself. He returned the call and allowed himself to feel pleasure. Something inside him was pressed by the tip of the cock and he felt dizzy. He yelled out and cursed into the air.

He let the man bite him again as he created a rhythm of thrusting into that spot every time he moved. Sasuke allowed drool to slide out of the side of his mouth and wished that his hands were unbound to wipe it away. Instead they were still bundled behind him against the wall. His nails scraped it and he feared they would begin to bleed as well.

They continued this rough and needy mating hurriedly and faster than Sasuke had expected. Only a few minutes after the man had entered him, he felt that cock stiffen as hard as it could and spray its warm seed inside him.

Feeling the fox's release caused his own climax. He shouted the dobe's name as the wave of pleasure hit him and he knew that he had soiled the Anbu's clothing with his love.

He panted against the man that held him up. He took in the man's scent and realized that this had been his first time. It had not been some feminine idea of romantic. It had not even been with someone that he loved. It was fast and it was hard and it was painful. It was not caring and it was not tender. It was not what he was saving himself for. It was not Naruto that had been inside him as he planned, and it would never be him ever. He would be killed by the village court and it would be all over with just this as his experience.

Still no words were exchanged and he felt his neck being nibbled on. He was feeling brave.

"Did you tell him?" he asked and received no reply but his name.

"Sasuke," it was a whisper.

He let his head fall against the shoulder once more and he sighed. _He_ would never know. He lost the little bit of hope that he had had left. He would never know. He would either rot here or die somewhere else that they chose and he would never know how he had felt. His words meant nothing now. He scowled in his darkness and breathed in solemn breaths.

Nothing else was said. The leg of his trouser was replaced and he was sat back into the chair. The fox hadn't even bothered to clean the stickiness that flowed out of his opening. The blood remained stained on his pale legs and he could feel it soaking into the fabric of the pants. His hands were once again tethered to the chair and a final kiss on his lips was given before the man left the room.

He was left all alone again. He sighed. He was completely alone. He sighed again.


	9. Chapter 8 Awakening From a Dream

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 8

Awakening From a Dream For More

The next day he was visited by Hawk again. He was fed his normal meal of soup and told that a decision was close to being final.

He inquired of where Fox had gone to, but did not receive a truthful answer. He was disappointed and this was strange. He knew it was odd of him to feel the sense of loss in his absence.

Of course he was just a tool, an instrument used for release. Of course he was nothing more to the fox masked man, how could it be anything different. Several times he had told himself that it didn't matter what the man thought of him because he wasn't _him_, but he had always known that this wasn't true.

He had hoped it was not just a fuck. The selfish part of him had hoped that the heartache the man had felt yesterday as he was inside him was over Sasuke and nothing else. He wanted to be the one to make that man feel such hurt and pain that he had sensed in him.

He felt the hawk's eyes on him. He let him watch him and he sat still. He let out a sigh.

"I used to use a hawk, you know. I used it for scouting and its sharp eyes," he said to the man guarding him.

"I know. We watched in the sky for any sight of it for months." The voice was filled with old memories that begged to be told.

"You knew and you looked for me?"

"Yes."

"Who are you?"

"We've gone over this before. My name is not for you to know."

"A name doesn't matter without the character attached to it. You knew me if you looked for me. If you didn't, then it meant that he had asked you to. And if he asked you then you know him."

He tilted his head. He wanted a reaction about the figures he had just been able to draw in his mind.

"You are speaking in riddles again."

"You know him. Everyone knows him. You could tell him for me." Perhaps Hawk would tell _him_. Perhaps he would know after all. He was giddy and he was excited. His hope returned by an inch.

"Tell him what?"

"You can tell him that I love him. The fox wouldn't but you will because you know it's something important." He felt dizzy.

"Who is it that you mean?" This man already knew the answer. He was asking to be polite and out of pity. He knew that Sasuke wanted to talk about it.

"You know. Everyone knows. Who else could it be?"

"Don't be complicated. If you want me to pass on a message you have to tell me who it is for, for me to even consider it." Sasuke understood now. The hawk just wanted to hear Sasuke say it. He would get some sense of satisfaction from hearing the name.

"Uzamaki. Will you tell him for me?" he felt desperate and it showed in his voice.

"What is it that you want me to say?"

"To tell him that I love him and that I have truly missed him. Tell him after all these years and after so much time apart, he's still my closest friend." He hung his head. He would not allow himself to become over emotional in front of this man that he did not know as well as the fox.

"I will see what I can do."

With that the conversation was over. There was nothing else to exchange between the two males and so the routine that he was used to continued. He was fed. He was watched. He was helped to urinate and he was sat back down in his chair. He was disappointed in general.

After he was once again alone in his darkness, he fell into a dream.

_He landed in a field in the middle of nowhere. There were no trees or landmarks around him. There was nothing that he could use to determine where this place was located within his head._

_It was a rather large field with grass that swayed in a breeze that he could see but not feel. There was no sound in this place._

_He assumed that he was alone and that his subconscious had created this place for him to be at peace. It _was_ peaceful. It was calm and it was much brighter than the darkness he was in right now. _

_He had no blindfold or bindings. He felt and looked the same as he ever had and he could feel that he was his normal self in this dream. On his body he wore his familiar Uchiha clan emblem and his katana strapped to his waist. _

_In the distance of all that the field covered, he saw him. It was not _him_. His silver hair stood in its usual position and the posture was still lazy and awkward. As the figure drew closer, the only difference in this man from the real one that he remembered was that this one had both eyes uncovered and ready to use. One was dark and the other red._

_The red one spun its black shapes within it and focused on him. This was a gesture he had seen the real man use several times as he readied himself for a fight. There would be no fight though. He could feel it. There would be words, but there would not be an altercation. _

_Perhaps the red eye was shown to him in warning. Perhaps it was simply to watch him better. Perhaps it was only there because that was what his unconscious mind brought forth for him to see._

_The man did not speak and so he decided to break the silence himself. _

"_What should I do?" he asked, his hands slowly rising to land in his own hair. If he was going to see his former teacher in a dream, he was going to get to business and ask all that he needed to._

"_What do you think that you should do?" A voice he hadn't heard in a very long time echoed throughout the field._

"_If I knew, I wouldn't ask. I'm so lost." He began to play with the strands of hair between his fingers, twisting it this way and that. It had been quite a while since he could use his hands or do something as pointless as this._

"_You are only lost because you think there is no way out. There isn't, if that's what you're going to ask. You came here yourself. We did not bring you back and so the punishment they give you will be your own doing." The figure swayed in the breeze as if he had no weight to him and continued on for Sasuke's sake._

"_Since you came here on your own, it also means that they will take it into consideration. You've cooperated so far, maybe they don't hate you. But maybe they do, I don't really know."_

_He knew this did not answer his question but it still made him feel a sense of relief._

"_What should I do?" he asked again._

"_Nothing. There is nothing that you can do but show them that you're not going to be dangerous to them anymore. That is all there is left."_

_He glanced down at the blades of grass that licked at his feet. He felt disappointed when he couldn't feel them tickling his skin._

_He would have asked more. He would have contemplated all that had been said to him by this dream Kakashi. He had no time to do any of the two. _

Suddenly the dream slipped away from him and the darkness covered him again. He was no longer asleep. He moved his head trying to feel around for what had woken him.

When he located it, he let a small smile twist at his lips. The fox had returned.

He said nothing. He waited. He waited for anything to come.

Fox advanced on him, the heat radiating from his body. It was an intense heat that bled through the clothing he wore and into Sasuke where he sat on his wooden chair.

The animal in the room said nothing. It reached around him once more and untethered him from the chair. It picked him up and brought him to the wall as it had done the day before.

Once again his spine was against the wall and once again his pants were undone.

The lips returned to him again but were different than before. They were still raw and needy, but they were slower this time. The tongue invaded his mouth and moved around as if the other man was tasting every part of him. He felt self-conscious. He knew that he would taste sour to the fox. The taste of his own mouth out powered the other man's, and so he did not have a clue of the fox's taste.

Again, he kissed back. He matched the movements with his own tongue and found that this brought the fox pleasure. He moaned into the mouth over his and felt a hot hand snake up the back of his shirt. It caressed his waist where his back had not been pressed into the wall.

This lasted for several minutes, but Sasuke could tell that Fox was impatient. He wanted to give him what he had come for. He thrust his hips up into the other man as best as he could to demonstrate that he was alright with this.

He was hard. The contact and the friction he felt as he pressed himself into the other's hips as hard as he could, sent dizziness to his mind.

He felt the Fox press into him in response and he could feel an ungloved hand pull his trousers down. The hand caressed his stomach under his shirt and then made its way down to his hardened member.

He moaned at the heat. Hadn't he wanted to feel the skin of that hand as it wiped at his mouth from under a glove?

The hand pumped him softly at first, but then picked up the pace. It caused Sasuke to breathe loud and rapid. He could also tell that the other man was enjoying doing this to him as well. He sensed that it was turning him on and making him sweat.

He couldn't help himself. "Naru," he moaned.

He expected the fox to stop. He supposed that when this last happened, it had not been a problem when he had said the name as he climaxed. He also supposed that it had been a natural reaction, but this time he expected the man to stop and become upset. He wanted the man to be upset that he was thinking about someone else as he did this to him.

But he didn't stop. Instead he touched him with more enthusiasm it seemed. He kissed Sasuke's neck and held his waist tighter. He breathed into his ear and bit the earlobe.

He anticipated the same pain that he had felt before. He thought that the man would enter him fast and harsh again. He was surprised when he felt the hand leave his cock and three fingers enter his mouth.

He knew what this action was for. He sucked on them and rubbed them with his tongue. He did this as sensually as he possibly could in the position he was in and he made sure that they were coated well with his saliva.

When they were slowly pulled from the warmth of his lips, he felt a wet fingertip rub on the puckered outside of his entrance. It moved in small circles and brought a tickling feeling to his stomach.

His lips were kissed with a tenderness that hadn't been shown before and the finger pressed itself into him. The pain was sharp, but after the time before it didn't bother him as much as it probably should have.

Fox moved his finger in and out of him while rubbing his walls gently. His breath was heavy and excited as it landed against Sasuke's neck.

When he felt as if he was stretched enough, he entered his other digits and used the same technique to loosen Sasuke's hole.

Sasuke began to enjoy the feeling of the fingers inside him and he moved his face around in search of the man's neck. When he found it, he bit him softly in response. It was a salty and masculine taste. It was arousing and it made his lips tingle.

The fingers were removed and he heard Fox spit into his hand as he had done the first time they had done this. The tip pressed against him and pushed inside.

It hurt so much less this time and he found that he truly was enjoying it. It was pushed into him as deeply as he could take it and it made him feel full.

Fox thrust into him with the same pace as he had done with his fingers and was able to find that spot inside him much quicker than he had before. He pushed himself hard against it and Sasuke could not help but cry out.

With each movement, this spot within him was brushed and pressed and the pleasure jolted through him like static. He could not help but picture blue eyes upon him.

With this thought, he felt his release becoming closer. Again he couldn't hold back, "Naruto. Naruto. Naruto." He said the name aloud like a mantra.

He could feel fox's cock tense and twitch inside him at this and he knew that he too, was close to his own climax. He ground his hips as much as he could and used his hands against the wall to hold himself up as he arched his back. The hands on his hips pushed him down hard and rough.

"Sasuke," a name was whispered into his ear followed by a moist tongue.

He imagined that it was _him_ that was calling out to him and it became too much. The pleasure became overwhelming and he felt as if he couldn't breathe. He moaned a loud and throaty moan as he came against the other man.

He felt light headed and exhausted. Fox thrust into him a few more times and he felt the hot liquid fill him up again. He could hear the guard catch his breath as he leaned his chin against Sasuke's face.

When he was ready to move him, he carried Sasuke back to his wooden chair and sat him down. Instead of replacing his clothing and leaving him alone in the silence as quickly as he had done before, he crouched down in between his legs. It was all Sasuke could do to keep himself from becoming aroused again as he felt the man's presence in front of him.

The fox pulled something that sounded like cloth from a pocket and began to clean him up. The fabric felt soft against his skin and he found that it was almost comforting.

When the sticky liquid was wiped from both the outside and inside of him, he heard the lid of a metal container being twisted off. The contents of the container smelled of mint and aloe. He couldn't help but think that he had smelled something similar before.

A cold lubricated finger entered him again without warning and he felt himself jump. He let out a large breath as he calmed himself. The solution that he was being coated with left him feeling soothed and less sore.

"It will help you heal." Fox said into the darkness before his eyes.

When he was finished, Sasuke could hear the lid being replaced and the container disappearing back where it had come from.

He didn't expect it, the lips on the inside of his bare thigh. They were warm and still kiss swollen from earlier. He hung his head in attempt to attract attention from the man.

He heard the man move and then felt those lips on his own. He said nothing despite the words in his head.

He could then feel his pants being replaced and suddenly felt unhappy that it surely meant that Fox would be leaving him soon.

He was right in his assumption. The man stood and loomed over him, his strong hands resting on Sasuke's shoulders. He said nothing. He removed his hands and Sasuke could feel him turn and leave him behind to sit within his darkness.


	10. Chapter 9 Her Decision and a Bath

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 9

Her Decision and A Bath

The sound of the door startled him into the waking world. He tilted his head in attempt to remove the dirty hair that hung in his face. It had grown longer than before, he noticed.

He felt the hawk's chakra and waited patiently.

"They've made a decision. You will receive your sentencing today," the voice said.

He felt anxious. He felt sure that he would be sentenced to death and he felt confused. His mouth hung slightly open.

"They didn't come. The fox didn't come. The dobe didn't come. I'll die today, and they didn't come for me." His mouth closed and he would have scowled if his eyes had been visible to the other man. He felt an aching sensation fill up his body.

"Perhaps they have other obligations to attend to. For what it's worth, I am sure that if they could be here with you they would be, whether they were responsive to you or not." Sasuke knew that the Anbu guard had said this to console him. He was grateful. He said nothing further.

Hawk walked behind him to untie his hands from the chair and helped him to stand up. His hands were rebound in front of him instead of behind. His shoulders felt better at this new position.

His blindfold still remained. A hand landed on his arm where his elbow was slightly bent and urged him to move forward. His legs ached from being used for the first time in over a month and he stumbled.

He was led down a hallway. They made several turns and he could hear his footsteps echo around him. It was a hollow and loud sound.

When they made it to their destination, he sensed four people within the room. From the chakra they emitted, he assumed that they were all female.

He was urged to walk to the center of the room where he was warned that their hands would be on him to undress him and wash him.

Their hands were soft and he could tell that they were medical ninja. He knew that they were highly skilled healers and could also feel that they were adequate in battle. He allowed them to do as they pleased.

He was undressed and they poured water over his head to make his body damp. The water was lukewarm and it felt refreshing. He hadn't bathed the whole time that he had been in the village and it felt like something to be treasured. It saturated the blind fold and he clenched his eyes shut to avoid it from dripping into them.

When his body was covered in a thin layer of water, he felt them begin to rub a vanilla scented liquid soap over his filthy skin. He could feel the grime and dirt beginning to lift off of him.

His hair was washed as well. A set of fingers massaged his scalp and made sure that they cleansed each strand of silky black hair. He realized that the person who owned the fingers wasn't a female as he had first thought. They were gentle on his head and the chakra projected femininity, but it was definitely a male that washed him.

He found that he didn't mind. The fingers moved in circles and nails were lightly scraped against his skin to remove any dirt and oil that had formed from not having his hair washed in such a long time. These circles calmed him and made him feel dizzy. He fought the urge to fall asleep.

His skin was lathered and scrubbed in every place on his body that he could imagine, even in between the curve of his behind. As his entrance was brushed against, he briefly thought of what the fox had done the night before. The hands all over him drove him insane, he was finally receiving the affection he had longed for. He didn't even have the chance to feel embarrassed.

He let his chin fall to his chest and let out a laugh. He felt the hawk's eyes on him.

"Why do you laugh?" A stern voice said.

"I was just thinking that when I was offered affection from all those around me, I didn't want it and I pushed people away and now that I haven't been offered anything of the sort, I crave it. I'm laughing because I'm pathetic enough to consider being washed a form of affection and to be enjoying this. He would laugh at me too, I've been put in my place." His smile faded as he came to the end of his speech. No reply was given to him and so, he continued to focus on the hands that cleaned him.

When the dirt had been rubbed away he felt several more helpings of water being poured over him to wash away the vanilla soap. It felt satisfying that he no longer smelled putrid and foul. He enjoyed the scent that they had chosen for him and decided that if he had the chance to live after today, it would become his new favorite scent.

The one that had washed his hair now toweled it dry. A few drops from the wet strands still dripped onto the back of his neck and his shoulders. A brush was pulled through the black mess on his head and he felt a few sharp accidental tugs as knots were untangled. He noticed that they did not cut it as he thought that they would. It reached his shoulders now.

Other towels were used to dry the rest of his skin. The fabric was soft and made him feel sleepy. The damp air in this room made bumps appear on the top of his skin. He had always detested the feeling of this, but now he took delight in being able to feel any sensation but the darkness he saw in front of his eyes.

His mouth hadn't been cleaned. It still tasted sour and dirty. He would have to deal with it.

He was dressed in a clean set of clothing and felt relieved at being clean and groomed. He thanked them out loud for the kindness in washing him and his elbow was once again taken to lead him away from the room.

They came to a set of steps that led upwards and he was told to be very careful. He smirked. He had known that they were underground after all.

When they reached the top, the air outside hit his face and sent a chill through him as the still damp blindfold sat across his eyes. He enjoyed the air that seemed to be fresh and could hear sounds and noises in the background. He heard people talking and training in the distance.

They walked for several minutes before they entered a building. Once inside, it smelled of wood and dust. It was a professional place he concluded. The floors sounded like they were made from a rough but polished wood. The air was warm.

He heard many voices talking amongst themselves and he suddenly became nervous. He was led into a room where he could feel many sets of eyes watching him and scrutinizing. He felt self-conscious and scoffed at himself for this. He was Uchiha Sasuke, he had nothing to have self-esteem issues over. He lifted his head into the position it was normally in before his visit to the village.

The voices became louder and he felt his heart beat frantically in his chest. He was worried. He stopped in his train of thought and gave himself a sliver of hope. It was possible that _he_ was in the room and that he would see Sasuke before his sentence was announced.

He was told to stand still in the place that he was led to and a familiar chakra settled just behind him. He could feel Fox standing at his back.

He heard Tsunade's voice and the people in the room were hushed and settled down. The fox untied the blindfold and slid it off of his face. For a few moments he was afraid of what he would see in front of him and he continued to keep his eyes closed.

It felt good to feel the light and familiar weight of the cloth removed. The skin around his eyes felt relieved at receiving a breath of air. He was told that he was allowed to open his eyes.

When he cautiously opened them he saw the village's most influential ninjas before him. His eyes moved around the room taking in as much vision as they could hold and felt content with his sight being granted back to him.

He saw the shadow user's father and his former classroom teacher, Iruka he thought was his name. That man had always been kind to him even when he had fought with _him_ onseveral occasions and disrupted class. Seeing him, subconsciously reminded him of the day he had shared his first accidental kiss.

He saw that distinguishable mess of silver hair belonging to the man in his dream the night before and he noticed the flash of pink tresses beside him. In the man he saw a patient emotion. The girl wore a worried face and her brows knitted together in anxiety. Her small features would have been beautiful, he thought, if he had had interest in her personality.

They sat close together and he sensed the comfort that they were able to gain from one another, like a child and its parent. The thought made him jealous. He wanted the same relationship with the man because he was the only one that he could look up to at this point, he wanted his own parents back. That wouldn't happen he reminded himself. His eyes moved on.

He saw several other ninjas from his generation. He saw the girl that used mind transfer techniques to help her teammates destroy an enemy and he saw the rather large boy that could expand his body to a hundred times bigger than it already was.

He saw the girl with pale eyes and a shy habit rubbing her fingers together in nervousness. He remembered that out of all of the women he had known, he didn't mind her quite as much as others. She sat next to a man with dark and thick eye brows and green fabric covering his body. He recalled long optimistic speeches about youth full spring times.

There were several others that he had remembered from his childhood but they didn't matter to him. The only one that did, was not seen. He searched every face for one that held blue eyes and tan skin. He searched for a shock of yellow hair and maybe even an orange piece of clothing. He was disappointed and felt a hollowness grow within him when he found none of these characteristics in the people that watched him.

He panicked within himself. _He_ hadn't come. He felt so sure that he would at least attend his sentencing. Perhaps he was ill. Maybe he was in the hospital. Maybe he was dead. That simply wasn't possible. The idiot was an idiot, but there was no way that he would allow himself to be killed. He needed this to be untrue. He needed him to still be alive, he needed his love to not go to waste.

A chair was brought behind him and his shoulders were lightly pressed to encourage him to sit down. His hands were still bound. His heart beat sounded in his head like a rapid impactful drum.

"Uchiha Sasuke, do you know why you're here today?" she asked with an authority filled voice.

He watched her facial expression and decided it would be best to answer all of the questions that she asked him.

"Yes I do, Hokage-sama," he answered her back.

"Good then you know that a decision about your punishment was made. Several of your former peers have shown up today to witness this." Her honey colored eyes focused on his dark ones and he decided that he found her beautiful in a mothering way. She was surely not the mothering type, but she reminded him of someone that had the potential to be. He understood now why _he_ saw her as a part of his makeshift family.

"You have been considered a missing nin for six years and have avoided all attempts of our search squads to return you to where you came from. You have seriously injured several of our shinobi and have even attempted to kill a few as well." Her words made his stomach turn in stress and the reminders of all of his misdeeds.

"Your fate has been carefully debated by myself and my personal advisors. The words of your peers have also been taken into account and I have decided what path you will be taking from here on out." He didn't understand. It sounded like he wasn't going to be executed as he had expected. This both relieved him and scared him. If he were to live, he wasn't quite sure what he would be living for anymore. All of his goals had been accomplished and there was nothing left to do but love the man that had always had his heart, but he wasn't here. He probably hated Sasuke. He was probably dead.

"You have committed many crimes in your absence from Konoha and they have all been scrutinized. It came to our attention that although you have caused much damage to those who pursued you, you haven't killed or critically injured any of our citizens."

"It is true that you were responsible for the death of our elder, Danzo. We have discovered from several reliable sources that you did not actually murder him and that he committed suicide by causing himself to be engulfed in his own explosion. Although you are the reason that he died, you were not the one to cause his actual death."

"We have come to learn over the years that he, too, was a traitor to this village and seemed to harm it more than assist it. In driving him to his death, it can be thought that you have done us a favor. You have also eliminated four other known threats to us and several of our elite ninjas. For this, your punishment was changed from its original outcome."

"It is a crime to abandon one's village and become an outcast, but we have also taken into consideration that your only reason for leaving was to assassinate these men I have mentioned before."

"Because of all of these things, I have decided that you will not receive the punishment of death. You also will not be exiled because you can be of use to us once you have regained my trust. You are the true last Uchiha and one of the only two people left on this earth that can use your unique eye trait and techniques." Of course she had to remind him that he was alone in this world.

"I sentence you to two years of probation. You will not leave this village for any reason until I decide so and you will be watched constantly by a team of Anbu at all times, also until I decide otherwise. You will not be given any missions until your probation ends but I will allow you to train and exercise your skills within reason."

He was stunned. His mouth hung slightly ajar and he stared with a confused expression. His fingers tingled. The sound of his heart was rapid and thundering in his ears. The blood rushed to his brain and he felt the lightheadedness overtake him. He knew that if he didn't force himself to keep breathing in a steady pace, he would faint.

"The Uchiha district no longer exists. You will live in an apartment that is provided for you and you will not leave it even to go outside without permission from me or your guards until I decide otherwise."

He was silent. He could not believe that he had gotten off with a slap on the wrist and a long lecture. This could not be all, there must be something lying underneath waiting to surface when he least expected it. His eyes stung. He could not register what was happening.

"What do you have to say?"

He could not think of any words to say and so he did the first thing that he had been brought up to do when faced by someone more superior than himself. With his hands still secured in front of him, he stood up from his chair and bent himself at the waist as far as he could go in a deep bow. His head hung down and his eyes were pinned to the floor to show respect.

"Thank you Hokage-sama. You are kind to me." before bowing and demonstrating gratitude may have mortified him. It may have humiliated him and his pride may not have allowed him to even think of doing such actions, but right now none of this mattered. He had been pardoned and allowed to live.

When he lifted himself back up and stood straight before sitting back down in his chair, her plump pink lips spoke again.

"Do not mistake this for kindness. I may be known to be soft on the inside but I am fair and strict all in the same on the outside. Honestly, if I had had the chance to make this decision on my own, I would have had you executed. I am not cruel, but it is what fits the crimes you have committed. It is true that there is much evidence to prove that the reasons for your actions justify them, but I was willing to overlook them."

"You have caused so much pain within your peers and you have even tried to kill several of them, one whom is very important to me. The safety of comrades should be a high concern of every shinobi and you have not demonstrated this worry. You are stubborn and arrogant. You rely too much on your physical skill and not enough on your social habits." He closed his eyes. He knew exactly who she had been talking about when she admitted that someone was important to her. He wanted to tell her that he understood and that _he_ was important to him too. He wanted to tell her the truth, that he hadn't really intended to kill him and that he would not do it again. He supposed that it wouldn't matter if he had said these things, she would not believe him.

"I want you to know that if it had not been for a few of the people in this village that still have faith in you and your ability to change, I would have ignored all of the evidence and made my decision without debating it. It would have been as any other Hokage before me would have done. You should be more grateful to those few than you have ever been thankful in your entire life. Another honest thing is that I do not like you and allowing you to live within our village, is rather a kindness to them than it is to you. You are very lucky that you have such loyal friends." He hoped that it was the man that he loved that had convinced her to think his fate over. He had hoped that the man still cared about him.

He _was_ thankful. He was thankful that now he had a chance to start over again. It was true that he no longer had a purpose, but this new opportunity at life was a chance to change and to meet the blonde again. He wanted to fix the way things had turned out and he wanted to be different. His time in his confinement saw to it that he had changed enough to understand the things that needed altered in his behavior. Perhaps becoming different and showing _him_, where ever he was, his feelings was his new goal in life.

He decided that he would do as he was told and he would wait for _him_ to come to him. He would wait until the end of him, just as the man had waited for Sasuke.

"Your hands may be unbound when you are escorted out of the building. I expect you to follow the rules I have set for you and to behave. Trust me, if you give me a reason to lock you up or punish you otherwise, I will not hesitate next time. This sentence was a warning to you. You're dismissed."

Once again he felt Fox behind him. He was urged to stand. When he stood straight he felt a hand lightly land on the space between his shoulder blades. The hand was hot. He felt excitement in the other man and he could not help himself. It was contagious and filled him up. When a small amount of pressure was applied, he knew that it was time to begin walking towards the exit.

He took one more look back at the crowd of people that had assembled just to see how his fate had played out and was not surprised at what he saw. Some were smiling or showed expressions of contentedness on their faces and others appeared to be angry. It didn't matter, their opinions didn't matter to him.

He located them in the crowd. She was smiling, her pink lips upturned and her cheekbones dusted with pink. His visible brown eye showed neither happiness nor disappointment. He took it to mean that he was content with the Hokage's decision.

She began making her way through the bundle of people towards him. He did not desire to talk to her just now. It was very likely that he would find information on _him_ from her, but he was looking forward to the ropes being undone from around his wrists. As if sensing his emotions and feelings, Fox again pressed on his back and led him outside before she could come near them.

He imagined her face to be unhappy or offended. He didn't care at the moment. He would begin being a different person later, right now he wanted to enjoy the chance to be untethered and free to walk around. Well, to his assigned apartment anyway. It was a start.

Once outside he felt the sharp kunai come between his wrists and eat away at the rope. He pondered for a second what it would be like if the ninja tool had missed their mark and pierced his skin instead. He wondered what the fox would do, how he would feel.

Once his hands were free he rubbed the wrist of his right hand and flexed his fingers. It felt good. He was not free, but he felt to be so.

"Congratulations," a voice from behind the mask said.

He turned around to look at the man that had spoken and for the first time ever, had the opportunity to study the mask before him. It was made from porcelain, as most of the Anbu masks were and also featured an animal. He had not lied; it truly was a fox on his mask.

The snout was long and slender with a black tip for a nose and sat between two sets of three whiskers on either side drawn in a flash of orange. The eyes were outlined in black ink and contained no irises. They held only two perfectly round black pupils. The lines of fur were carved into the surface. He had not seen an Anbu mask so intricate before. Itatchi's had not been this detailed, it had been cartoonish and a childlike adaptation of the animal. He wanted to touch it with his fingertips. He resisted.

"Thank you," he said to his guard.

"This way, Sasuke."


	11. Chapter 10 Instant Ramen and a New Fate

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 10

Instant Ramen and a New Fate

When they reached the first floor apartment, he was given a copy of the key to the lock. It was an ordinary thing made from silver and with teeth on one side at the bottom. He practiced opening the door and slid it into the lock. It was turned and he could hear the click before the door knob was malleable.

It was not big but it was not small. He supposed it was the right size for one person. It was furnished and smelled like cleaning products. They had prepared it recently for him. Fox led him into each room, giving him a silent tour of his new home.

The kitchen was pre-stocked with food and featured all of the cooking necessities. He noticed that it held new cooking pots and pans, along with dining wear. A clock hung on the wall and the ticking echoed through the room. The sound was welcome. He hadn't heard a clock in a very long time. Then again, he hadn't lived in a place that required a clock since the last time he had made this village his home.

It held a small square table to eat off of and a long counter for preparing food. He was pleased.

The living room was medium sized with a plain fabric couch in the center. It was of a sophisticated design but still looked soft and comfortable. It was what he would have chosen for himself.

A small television set sat in front of the couch and he stared at it for a few seconds. Such modern technology was not often used in this area and it didn't really suit him. He could watch movies as he used to with _him_, he supposed. Perhaps it wasn't such a horrible thing.

A tall bookcase stood strong against a wall. It held what appeared to be several novels and a few copies of "Make-Out Paradise," which he was certain, were gifts from the silver haired man. On the last few bottom shelves several scrolls sat rolled up neatly and ready to be read. This too, pleased him.

When he walked into the bedroom, he knew that someone that had known him closely had had to help them chose the room's contents. It must have been one of the three that had decorated it. Everything was as he would have chosen them to be. It was simple but stylish and the colors were his favorites.

He walked over to the wardrobe that he was sure would hold clothing and examined what he found inside. The clothes were also pieces that he would have chosen for himself and he was happy. They resembled his past outfits and he knew that they would fit him well.

He was disappointed to see that only a few of the pieces had the Uchiha clan symbol embroidered into them. Among these was a formal yukata. He wondered where he would be wearing this article. He had not worn something so formal since the massive funeral that was held for his family.

He also found a feminine looking pale blue kimono that he assumed to be made from silk. He pinched it between his index finger and thumb and rubbed the material in small circles. It was smooth and delicate. He could not help but imagine what it would feel like as it lay across his shoulders. He could not help but indulge himself in the ability to feel things with his fingers. He wondered why he was given such a thing.

He could feel Fox's eyes on his back as he finished his examination of the article and tilted his head to show his confusion. No answer was given and so he moved on.

He sat on the bed and reveled in its softness. His eyes looked around the room and then stopped. His breath caught in his throat and he felt a slight throbbing in his chest. Someone had placed a copy of the picture that had been taken on his first day of being a part of team seven.

He examined the faces of the four members and could not help but be angry with himself. In the photograph he had been making such an angry face as he looked over at the other boy in the picture. He shouldn't have done that. It had been his best friend after all.

Her face was as delicate as it had always been and her green eyes were squinted shut as she smiled her happiness. She had been happy simply because she was placed on his team. He had despised her at the time.

The teacher stood behind them, predicting that he would one day be proud of them all. He wondered if the man was proud of him now.

His eyes scanned each face and landed on _his_. He stared at it for several moments and could not help but wish the boy was next to him on his new bed. It took all he had not to caress the picture. It was something that he surely did not want to do as he was watched by the fox in his room.

He stood and walked to the last room of the apartment, which he assumed could only be the bathroom. It was tiled and held all that it was supposed to hold. It was not special. He noticed the shower was big enough for more than one.

He returned to sit on his bed. He leaned backward and allowed himself to hit the mattress in a plop. It was a heavy movement but he felt that he deserved it. He looked up at the ceiling and pretended that he saw something fascinating there. His stomach ached and growled a warning of nausea.

"You should eat something," a voice said.

"I'm not hungry," he replied. It was obvious that he was lying but he wasn't quite ready to convince himself that this wasn't a dream.

"Come with me," he was told as he followed the man into the kitchen.

He watched from the doorway as the man opened the cabinets until he found what he was looking for. It was an instant ramen cup. Sasuke felt his heart beg to stop beating. The thought of eating such a food was bad because it brought up memories of him turning _him_ down for lunch when he was asked. He felt dizzy, but concluded that it was because he really was hungry.

The plastic that sealed the product was torn off and the paper lid was pulled back. The sound of the tap filling up a cooking pot reminded him that he had to make use of his new bathroom. He left the room.

When he returned he saw that the pot was sitting over a burner being urged to boil. Fox stood with his head slightly bent, watching the water as if it was captivating him. He sensed Sasuke's return and turned around to study him.

The man's hair was hidden behind a cloth on the back of his head and the color of his skin could not be determined. He wanted to remove the mask to reveal the face underneath it.

The water reached boiling point and was poured into the Styrofoam cup. He was told to sit down at the table. The smell of the instant noodle soup filled the air around him and he decided that it would taste good because it was something other than the liquidity soup he had been fed during his time underground.

Fox sat down in the chair across from him and watched him eat. The stare was the same as it had ever been. He lifted the chopsticks to his mouth and enjoyed the taste of the noodles.

He did not get a chance to finish eating before there was a knock on his door. He did not have to guess who it had been. He knew that she would come from the way she had attempted to pursue him within the room he was given his sentence. She was followed in by the teacher.

She sat in a chair next to him and smiled. She was nervous. She was enjoying getting to be next to him. He found it both disturbing and comforting. Hadn't he wanted her adoration the day before he had come here?

"You're home, Sasuke-kun," she stated simply. He could tell that she was feeling brave. She reached her hand out towards his face and caressed his cheek just below his ear. She wrapped one delicate but strong arm around his neck and pulled him close. He allowed this because he was starving for attention and affection.

He sensed discomfort in the fox behind him and as he turned in her grasp, he noticed that the man was leaving the room. He did not want that. He did not want to feel alone in this room with two of the people he had missed. He no longer knew how to interact with them.

"Stay with me please," he asked as he had pleaded the man so many times before. On several occasions the man often gave Sasuke what he wanted. This time was no different. He again took his place behind Sasuke and watched him being held by his former teammate.

She did not seem to like that the Anbu guard would be staying in their company. A look of annoyance passed over her green eyes and he suddenly felt angry with her. It shouldn't have mattered if the guard was in the room or not. This was not a private moment and it would never be.

He gently pushed her arms off of him and placed them at her sides. He pushed his chair back a few inches so that he would no longer be in direct contact with her. She was displeased and disappointed, he could tell.

Kakashi made his way to stand next to the table and in front of him. He looked down at him and Sasuke felt himself remembering what it had felt like to be his student.

"You've grown since the last time that we've all seen you."

"I don't think that I've gotten all that much taller, Sensei," he couldn't help himself. He had needed to use the old title to judge where he stood with his former teacher. He saw a certain look grow upon the man's face, he was pleased with Sasuke.

"I didn't mean your body, Sasuke-kun. You have grown in so many other ways since the last time that we faced you. I knew that you were not meant to be someone cold and ruthless."

He looked down at his hands. He studied them and found that they held marks around his wrists where the rope had lain for so long. He felt ashamed that he had treated his old team the way he had. He was sorry. He let the man know.

"I'm sorry, Kakashi. I didn't quite understand the way things were supposed to be so I made assumptions and I was making it up as I went. I was cold because I didn't want any of you to get in my way because if you did, I would have killed you. I didn't truly want it to be the way it was, but I let it happen anyway. If I could change it, I would, but I can't and for that I'm sorry." He looked up at the man with silver hair and noticed that he was looking past him and at the guard behind him.

He wasn't sure why. Perhaps they knew each other and were friends?

"It's alright Sasuke-kun, you know that we can't stay angry with you." Yes, he definitely hadn't missed her personality. It was surely only the praise he had craved from her. He reminded himself that he was going to be different now and fought the urge to punch her. She didn't know anything and it wasn't her fault, not really. It was as if she couldn't comprehend the pain he had caused. Sure she was sad that he had left, but he didn't believe that she had understood anything new in his absence.

It both disappointed him and comforted him. He had thought that she would have grown up in his time away from her but it was obvious that if she had, she had chosen not to show him her new self. It also comforted him because it was a behavior and attitude that he was used to from her and it felt familiar.

She decided that she was going to give him a checkup. She said that she was going to make sure that he was not too malnutritioned and if he had any sicknesses from his captivity. He supposed that she saw this as an opportunity to touch him. He could feel her healing chakra build within her small hands and he let her pass them over his body.

She really was beautiful, he reminded himself as he watched her concentrate.

It was a cold feeling. It seeped through his skin and into the core of his bones. The chill was overwhelming and he put a stern hand on one of her wrists to beg her to stop. She did not like this but did as he gestured her to do.

With a huff from her lips, she straightened out her clothing and sat straight up in her chair. He could sense that she was looking for something else to say, but found none until her eyes landed on his half eaten ramen cup. She picked it up and looked at it.

"I didn't think that you liked this stuff. Did you pick it yourself?"

He shook his head. No, he didn't pick it for himself but he had been enjoying it before she had interrupted him.

She turned her head until she was looking at the masked man behind him.

"He's getting sick from not getting enough nutrients and vitamins. It's not good for him to eat instant junk like this, you need to make him healthier foods." She said it as if she knew better than anyone else. He scoffed at himself inside his head, she _did_ know better than anyone in the room when it came to health issues.

He wondered why she had said this to the fox behind him. She addressed him as if she knew him and that he would be here often with Sasuke. He supposed that perhaps this man was in charge of him and he decided that he didn't mind.

His two visitors began talking to him and he found himself lost. It felt distorted and fragmented somehow, this time he was spending with them now.

It did not flow easily and the time transitions were odd. It felt like he couldn't keep up and he wasn't sure when certain things were said. He found himself responding to a question that had been asked minutes ago instead of ones that had been asked only seconds before.

It felt surreal and he supposed that it could have been from the exhaustion. It could have been the malnutrition. It could have been the shock of not dying. It could have been his despair from _his_ absence. This encounter seemed to be a jumbled mess and he couldn't find a way out of it.

He let them both say what they thought was appropriate and he responded as best as he could. He watched her face show hope and the remnants of her long ago love for him surface within her eyes and the way her hands seemed to ache to touch him any way that they could.

He felt the understanding in the teacher. He understood that now was not the best time for talking and that perhaps rest was more important. Sasuke found himself once again reminding himself of how smart the man was.

He faded in and out of the conversation and then stilled. He would ask them where _he_ was. They would know. They always knew where he was. He waited until he heard her stop talking and then he opened up his mind and let the question flow like air.

"Where is he?" his tone of voice was urgent.

"What?" she seemed stunned like she didn't quite understand how he could not know the answer.

"Where is the dobe?" he asked again.

"Why do you want to know? I thought that you hated Naruto-kun?" When she said this, he noticed her usage of the honorific at the end of his name and remembered that she had never done that before. It could only mean that they were closer now and that she respected him to some degree. He was jealous.

"I need to see him," he stated simply. He wasn't sure if jumping right into his feelings for _him_ was a good idea with this woman. He would wait it out and see if either she or Kakashi asked him as he predicted they would.

"What's the urgency?" the know it all voice from his dream asked of him.

He found that he could not keep it in any longer. So much for waiting.

"I love him."

He heard her give a little breathy gasp from beside him. He sensed her surprise at this. He felt the chakra of the fox become more engulfed in the heat that he was known for. The teacher stared for a few seconds and then gave a quick nod in understanding.

When no words were provided, he asked his question again, "Where is he?"

She seemed utterly confused and she looked to her team leader for support. Behind him he felt Fox grow tense.

"Well, he's…" she felt around in the air trying to grasp the words.

"He's on a mission right now." Kakashi supplied the answer. He stared at the silver haired man as best as he could with his signature intimidation glare. The instructor was not lying. _He _was certainly was on a mission.

"He's not dead?" he looked down at the table, suddenly fascinated by the way the grains of the wood bled together.

"No, he's not dead." It was a straight answer and he felt himself feel lighter inside his chest.

"When will he back?" he tilted his head up to the man that was still standing in front of him.

"His mission could take a very long time." He noticed that Kakashi had not answered his question as straightforward as he had done the other one. He knew there was something that was being hidden from him. He shook it off. Perhaps the question had been answered this way because a mission ending date had not been determined. Or maybe he knew and didn't want Sasuke to become discouraged.

He looked over at her and smiled. He knew she would melt at this gesture and he wanted her to feel fondness for him so that he could get what he needed from her with ease.

"You'll tell me when he comes back, right Sakura-chan?" It came out almost like a purr and he knew it had the desired effect on her.

He watched her look around and try to hide the redness that tinted her cheeks in full waves of color. There was nothing else that she could say and so he saw her nod her head yes.

"I think it's time for us to leave. We'll be back again for a visit sometime soon." The visible brown eye closed and turned into a small U shape. This man was kind. The girl was not ready to leave yet.

After they said their goodbyes and took their leave, his inky eyes watched Fox pull something from the refrigerator. He became excited when he saw what it was. His mouth craved the juicy flesh on is tongue and between his teeth.

"Eat this. She said that you need something healthier. I'll make you something else while you finish it." The tomato was ripe with a dark vibrant red color. It smelled fresh.

He bit into and allowed its blood to flow down over his mouth. The flesh broke from the puncturing of his canine teeth and he felt satisfied. It had been a very long time since he had eaten something this precious to him. It was better than the food they had served him for over a month and it was better than any other kind of food he had ever had. He loved tomatoes.

When he was finished the juice covered his face and ran down his hands and onto his wrists. The fox turned around from what he was doing over the stove and let out a soft chuckle.

Then his gloved fingers were on his mouth wiping away what he had missed, just as they had done many times before. The gesture caught his breath in his lungs and he felt like a kiss would have solved all of his problems just then.

He stared up at the mask from where he sat and decided that he wanted to lift the mask from the face to see what was underneath. He knew that he couldn't and he suppressed it.

After he'd eaten what Fox had cooked for him and his stomach stopped its empty ache, he set out to use the shower. He wanted a chance to enjoy that he could now make his own choices inside this apartment. It was so different than being tethered to a chair and having his vision blocked out with cloth.

He had expected the guard to follow him and watch every move that he made. He assumed that was the only reason that he was here with him now. He was surprised when the man stayed rooted where he stood and looked in his direction. He looked turned and looked at him, tilting his head in question.

"Aren't you coming?" he asked with a slight seductiveness to his tone.

"I thought you'd want some privacy your first night here."

He wondered why the man was suddenly so shy. For over a month he had denied Sasuke that privilege and it outraged him that he was suddenly allowed it in a moment where Fox's company may have made him feel so much less alone.

It didn't matter, he supposed. He nodded his head and turned. As he walked away he added a small sway to his hips and made his way to the bathroom.

Being in the dark for so long had allowed him to refine his senses. He now had the advantage of having a heightened hearing and the ability to sense most things around him. He practiced his new skills as he stood outside the door to his destination.

He could hear the other man still in the kitchen where he had left him and he could feel the anticipation pouring out of the other man. What he was waiting for, Sasuke couldn't be sure.

After entering the room he undressed and felt the cold of the tile floor seep in through the soles of his bare feet. He enjoyed the ability to finally feel. He was pleased that this was a difference from sitting in his wooden chair without his sight.

He felt the air around him brush against his naked skin and he closed his eyes. It chilled him. A numbing sensation over took his body and he did not fight it.

He lay down on the tile, pressing his body hard against the surface. His face lay flat to one side, his soft cheek absorbing the temperature into himself.

He was tired all of sudden. He felt unable to move his body. He closed his eyes and thought about his place in this new life.

He was back in this village with two of the three people he had left behind and he was allowed to live with only a small punishment. He had expected to be sentenced to death and he couldn't believe that he had gotten off so easily. He would get a second chance to change the way things had turned out and was now able to create a new fate for himself. He would get to show the man that he loved that the promise had been kept and he may even get the chance to be friends with him again. He found that he was pleased with the possibilities that were laid out before him as he drew them in his mind.

He took a deep breath and allowed himself to slip into a dark and empty unconsciousness as the cold overtook his existence.


	12. Chapter 11 Vanilla Soap and Inquires

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 11

Vanilla Soap and Some Inquiries

He was shook awake with his name being called through the air. A gloved hand was on his bare shoulder squeezing and moving him side to side.

There was an urgency in the fox's voice and he suddenly felt empty and frozen over in this moment. His body sucked the heat from the hand and he opened his eyes. A mask stared him down at him and he knew the eyes were watching him intently.

He moved his head, a small fragile movement, and heard his name again.

"I fell asleep," he stated the obvious.

"Let me take you to bed." The mask let the words sound throughout the space between them. He noticed the man was crouched in front of him. A knee was pressed on the floor by his head.

He became upset. Suddenly a shower and washing all the evidence of his captivity was incredibly important and it needed to happen right away.

"No, I'm fine. I'm just tired."

No reply was given to him so he added in a more stern tone, "I really want to shower, please."

He was right, the word 'please' often did get him what he wanted from this man.

"Let me help you up then."

He sat up, looking straight at the mask. He shook his head and regained his balance. His mind settled. This was the fox and he would be alright.

He was pleased that he wasn't argued with. He was pleased that he was allowed to do as he wanted. He was pleased that the guard would no longer make him be alone.

A strong arm came around his middle and pulled him against a chest. Like the hand, it too was warm. It was solid and he could not help but imagine that it belonged to _him_ instead.

He was helped to stand up straight. He could feel those eyes behind the mask burning and roaming over his naked body. He began to heat up.

He turned and immersed himself in his task. He turned the metal knobs of the shower and tested the water. He swore that he could feel every droplet that hit his fingertips. He had missed being able to put his hands in the water from the streams he drank and bathed in during his time outside the village.

When the temperature was the way he thought it should be, he turned and watched the fox sit with his legs crossed on the floor. He would sit there to make sure that Sasuke wouldn't fall.

He stepped into the curtain of water and allowed it to cover him. He lost his breath as he allowed his face to be cleansed and the water to suffocate him.

He felt it run over his skin and wash away the anxieties he had felt moments ago. It calmed and relaxed him.

His eyes looked around and when he spotted the soap that had been provided for him, he covered his hands in it and rubbed them together to make a foamy lather.

The smell was the same as what had been used on him earlier and he inhaled it deeply into his lungs. He reminded himself that this was his new favorite scent.

He rubbed the suds over his body and closed his eyes to feel the sensations of this tedious task in a better way. He could not help himself. He began to imagine that it was _his_ hands that were washing him.

The idea that _he _would ever do something so intimate and personal to Sasuke made a dizziness circle in his mind. He knew that he would melt as would all the females he knew, were he to do something like that. He wished that it was possible. He wished that he was here with him and he wished that he would feel the same sense of love and desperation that he felt.

He became lost in his hopes and allowed him to fool himself into feeling optimistic. He pretended that _he_ loved him back and that he would fall back into Sasuke's life and give him a new purpose to live for.

He moved his hands over every expanse of skin that they could find and with every different part he touched, he imagined in his mind what the man would say about him. His chest was beautiful, he decided. His skin was just the right color, he concluded. His hair was as black as ink, he knew. _He_ would find him attractive.

When his hands reached over his chest, his fingers rubbed across a small pink nub, leaving it covered in soap and erect. He inhaled sharply and imagined what it would be like to have a mouth over it, a soft tongue tasting it.

His hands slid across his soft stomach. He noticed that his abdominal muscles had become weak and no longer hard. He had lost a lot of weight over the time he had sat in his chair and he was not as strong as he was meant to be. He decided that this was alright; it would give his rival a chance to brag about his own strength when he came back. He supposed that maybe he would even prefer Sasuke's stomach to be soft and feminine.

One soapy hand found itself tangled in the dark hair below his waist. It was course but soft at the same time and he wondered how it could be both. He saw a razor laid out for him to use and briefly contemplated ridding himself of the fur. _He_ might enjoy him being smooth down there and he was sure that Fox wouldn't mind it either.

He laughed inside himself for a second. It was strange that they would give him a razor, he had never been able to grow facial hair and he supposed that he wasn't meant to.

Both hands reached lower and washed himself clean. His fingers brushed against the soft skin and he again imagined the man that he loved was doing this to him. It aroused him but he found that it wasn't in a sexual way at the moment. Instead the thought of it made him feel loved and cared for.

It was not a feeling he had ever really allowed himself to feel before. When he was offered such things, he had shunned them in his pursuit of power and revenge. He closed his eyes and let the pretend feeling wash over him.

When he washed and rinsed his hair, it was the same way. He imagined those tan fingers twisted and tangled in his hair as the soap ran through the water. He thought that perhaps those fingers on his scalp would cause him to tingle the way that the fingers of the person that washed his hair before had done.

He closed his eyes and the comfort he found in his daydream made him sway and threaten to fall over. The steam from the water moved around him and coated his skin. He needed to step back out into the cool air or he would fall asleep.

He turned the water off and stepped out of the shower.

The Anbu guard was where he had always been on the floor. He stood up quickly and a bit awkwardly and reached for the towel nearby.

Sasuke hadn't asked him to, but he took the initiative to do so anyway. He rubbed the soft towel over the pale skin and allowed it to absorb the drops of water that clung to him. He caught every one of his curves and sharp muscle lines.

This act was tender ad soft. He didn't expect it, he wanted more, but not from this fox. He wanted it from someone else.

When he was dry, he walked off without saying a word and entered the bedroom. He rifled through the drawers of the wardrobe until he found a pair of underwear. He slid them onto his waist and felt the fabric sit on top of his skin in a thin and soft layer.

He opted to wear nothing else. He pulled the covers back from the mattress and placed himself under them. The feel of the sheets against his body made him instantly content and reminded him that he was tired.

The mattress was soft underneath of him and he let himself enjoy the feeling of lying down to sleep instead of sitting in his chair with his head hung to his chest. Even before his captivity he hadn't slept in a real bed or even a futon for such a long time. It had been years in fact. He often slept in trees or on a simple bed roll and this felt like a luxury to him. He smiled on the outside and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Do you like it?" the man asked.

He thought about it. It was just right. No, it was missing something.

"Yes, it's almost perfect." His grin grew longer across his features.

"Why is it not perfect?"

"It's missing something. But he's on a mission, so I'll just have to wait." He didn't look up at the fox. He was content in his optimistic approach to _his_ feelings from before and didn't allow it to fall until he noticed Fox was watching him intently.

He caressed a corner of the sheet in between his fingers and propped himself up on his elbow.

"You could lay down with me if you wanted to." he said, an innocent looking mischief hung around him.

The man was tempted. He wanted to join him, Sasuke could tell. He walked over to the bed and sat down in the curve that his legs and chest made as he bent them closer each other in an arched shape.

"Didn't you just say this spot was taken?" the voice behind the mask asked.

He looked up at the painted details and then looked off to the side, focusing on the wall.

"It doesn't matter. He won't want it anyway. He won't want me."

"What makes you think that? Didn't he follow you and beg you to return here? I'm sure he at least wants to be your friend."

He was put off. Who was this fox to begin speaking to him on a personal level when he hadn't done so before? He hadn't even spoken to him that way before he had been inside Sasuke. Why would he start now?

His reply was a bit snappy and hard as it would have been before he had been changed as he sat in his chair. "Exactly, he doesn't want me anymore because he stopped chasing me."

Fox moved his head and mask away from him for a second and then brought it back again. Sasuke heard a sigh from underneath it. "Perhaps he stopped chasing you because he felt that you would never be caught."

He was completely angry now. The heat engulfed him and arched across his skin, raising his temperature and causing his vision to blur. He couldn't understand how this man could ever suggest that _he _had given up. His rival never went back on his word and he never forfeited.

"No. If he still wanted me, he would have still been chasing me. He never gives up unless he changes his mind. Even if he thought it was impossible to catch up to me, he would still do it if he really wanted me here." His voice was raised and suddenly he wasn't so tired anymore.

He felt excitement in the other man's chakra and he could hear him breathing fast. He wasn't sure what would happen next and he thought maybe because he had yelled, the fox was angry and would put him in his place. He thought maybe he would be pinned to the bed, punched in the mouth, caressed with soft fingertips, anything. But none of it came. Just words.

"Sometimes the things that we do are never enough Sasuke, and we have to realize at some point that we aren't getting anywhere. I am sure that he still wants you to be here, at home, but I also think that he was tired of being disappointed when you refused his requests."

The statement calmed him. It allowed his mind to slow down and think. Perhaps Fox was right; perhaps _he _was just tired of being refused.

He sighed and sat up in bed. His hip now touched the fox's. He didn't mind. He breathed the oxygen around him in a slow and deep pace. He contemplated the different ways in which he had hurt the only person he had ever loved.

He had run off from _him_ as the other called out. He had made him cry at the sound of his name in his absence. He had fought him and injured him almost to no chance of recovery. He had made it seem as if he had tried to kill him. He had allowed such hateful things to come out of his mouth directed to his closest friend.

He had hurt him and Sasuke supposed that maybe he didn't deserve him. He formed it into a question and then allowed it to fall out of his mouth and into his lap.

"Do I deserve him?"

"Does he deserve you?" This question caught him off guard.

"Yes. He always did, but I hadn't noticed. I've loved him since I first saw him but I was too proud to recognize it for what it was until it became obvious that I was meant for so much more than spending my life doing anything other than exacting revenge. I told you before that I didn't think he was good enough at first. I was a baka." He rubbed one hand with the other and marveled at the lines and creases he found on his palm. He laughed inside himself as he had done earlier. It was usually _him_ that was the baka, but not this time. This time it was completely Sasuke.

"If you thought that he didn't deserve you then, what makes you think that he deserves you now?"

"Before, I was fuelled by the way my family had thought. I didn't think he was good enough because he didn't have a family of his own, so he didn't have a good bloodline. He was always ranked lowest in the class and he was always getting into trouble. He pulled pranks and he always had something rude to say to me even if I hadn't spoken first. When we trained together I assumed that he wasn't strong enough and that he couldn't catch up to me. I refused to be with anyone that was weaker than me regardless of their gender. To me he was a dead last and an idiot that couldn't do anything right." He scowled at himself and the way he used to think.

"And now, all that's different?"

"Now I see how wrong I was. He's just as strong as me now, maybe stronger now that I haven't trained in over a month. He's the descendent of the Fourth Hokage, but his bloodline no longer interests me. He was still an idiot the last time I saw him, but I suppose that doesn't matter anymore. I've heard that he's become a hero around here and they don't hate him so much. He's made friends. I'm proud of him for that, even if it makes him better than me because I have none. I also love him even more now than I had before for the little things in his personality." His sour face turned into a small upturned smile at the thought of all the traits he was attracted to.

The fox had a smile in his voice as he continued the conversation, "And what are they?"

"He's incredibly brave, except his fear of ghosts, unless that's changed. He's always been kind and caring. It's a bit annoying actually, how he feels the need to help everyone in his sight. His smile was contagious, although I wouldn't allow it to infect me. He always tried to catch up to me during our training and missions and he never gave up. He trained into the night just to make a small amount of progress, and then he would turn up exhausted the next morning all excited to show off to me. Even though the odds were against him most of the time he was always optimistic. It was like the world could end but he'd still try to put it back together again because he thought he could make it better." He smiled to himself as he listed these things.

He was lost in his train of thought and couldn't stop his mouth from moving. He continued this without stopping for several minutes.

"I noticed that I was truly wrong in that he wasn't good enough for me the day he tried to make me stay during our fight at the Valley of the End. He was strong and courageous and he begged me with so much need in his voice. It took everything within me not to give up and go home just to be near him, even if we weren't able to be as close as I had thought we should have been. No one will ever understand how hard it was for me to keep to my decision to leave when I saw him lying there unconscious. I had knocked him out and the rain was falling around us so hard. I was so afraid that I'd killed him. And no one knows, not even him how I kneeled by his head and cried. I fucking cried like everything was coming to an end." His voice trailed off and became much quieter. He brought a pale hand to his forehead and pressed it in frustration at himself before continuing to speak.

"I couldn't take my headband with me because I thought it would hurt too much so I left it with him. I think one day I would like to ask him if he kept it." His eyes were becoming wet. He did not want this man to see him cry for a second time. He willed the salty water to stop stinging him.

"If you loved him so much then why wasn't it enough to make you stay?" the fox asked him with a small amount of bitterness to his voice.

"I had made a decision for myself after my family died and I do not go back on the things I decide. I wanted it to be enough, I honestly did, but it wasn't at the time because I could never believe that he felt the same way about me."

"What does that matter? If you were in love, shouldn't that have been enough? Did it really matter all that much if he didn't feel the same?" The words came out fast and Sasuke had to shake his head in order to keep up.

His voice became loud again as he replied, "Yes it mattered. I had made a decision and I wasn't going to go back on it just so I could sit around here and watch him be in love with someone else. I waited and I searched for love that didn't seem to be there just so I wouldn't feel like it was something I couldn't have. I wanted him to show me just an inch of feelings in return to make me stay, but it wasn't there so I had to leave."

"So because he didn't tell you that he loved you, you thought it was alright to leave everything behind so that you wouldn't see him with anyone else?"

The question hurt him. It twisted him and angered him.

"No! It wasn't like that. I needed to feel like he had feelings for me to make me stay. I didn't feel that from him so I had nothing tying me here and I couldn't change my mind about leaving. I didn't want to give up the power that that snake offered me just so that I could watch him fall deeper in love with Sakura. I refused to waste my life and my potential pinning for someone that I couldn't have, which I'm doing right now anyway." He was out of breath he let himself fall back into the bed.

"Is that why you don't like her?" the voice said after a long drawn out silence.

"No, I don't like her because her personality annoys me. She's useful and skilled and I have to admit that I have missed her constant praise and devotion in our time apart, but I don't enjoy her company as she would like me to. Yes, I was and still am jealous of her. It hurt every time I watched him run after her and ask her to spend time with him. It hurt how he thought she could do no wrong and I despised that he hated me mostly because she preferred me over him. I was so angry that she couldn't understand how good he would have been for her, and then I would get mad at myself because I shouldn't have been thinking of her happiness over my own. I was conflicted and jealous." He brought his hands up to his face and covered his eyes as if to focus on something other than the stinging sensation in their corners.

"So you're jealous of her?"

"Yes. She's beautiful and she knows him better than me. They're closer now and have grown around each other. I would be surprised if he didn't still love her just the same or more now. I am so far away from them." He had told the truth, he was still very jealous of her and that was most of the reason he found her annoying. Just the sight of her reminded him that she had had _his _affection and not Sasuke.

It was quiet. The fox hadn't had anything to say at this. Sasuke let the seconds pass by him and he laid one hand over his bare chest before he asked something that had been bothering him since the conversation had begun. The heat of the other man through the blanket made him dizzy.

"Why do you ask me so many questions about my feelings for him?" The question hung in the air without a reply for a while before any words were spoken.

"You wanted to talk about him, I simply kept the conversation going and you feel better now. Don't you?"

He thought it over. Yes he felt slightly better. And No, he felt a little worse. He had been reminded of all the things he had done to the one that he loved and that the man was in love with someone else. The words being said out loud had made everything clearer and caused them to cut him even deeper than he had allowed them to do before.

"Do you know him?" As he asked, he sensed that Fox was deciding whether to tell the truth or to allow a lie to slip out.

"Yes."

The answer was simple and it filled him with both excitement and dread. This man knew _him_, which meant that perhaps he would be able to persuade him to come home from his mission early. He was worried because if _he_ found out that he had let a man that he knew inside him, he would be angry or disgusted, and that was providing if he loved Sasuke back or not.

The happiness and optimism out weighted the anxiety. There was so much that he wanted to ask about. He tried to slow his mind down and decided to ask them one at a time.

"Is he-is he alright?" He stuttered in his excitement, something he would never allowed himself to do before.

"He's fine." He could tell that there was a small smile underneath that mask and he returned it.

"Can I please ask you some questions?" He relied on the 'please' to get him what he wanted once again.

With a small nod he was encouraged to ask what he wanted to know.

"Do you think he's forgotten about me?"

"No, Sasuke. I don't think that he could ever forget about you."

His stomach felt like butterflies and animals were moving him around from upside down, around, and back again. He was happy at this answer.

"Did anyone tell him how I feel about him?"

"Yes, he knows."

He smiled broader and sat back up, placing his hand on the fox's shoulder.

"What was his response?" He was giddy and the dizziness from his head bled into his speech.

"That's not something I can tell you right now."

The dizziness stopped abruptly, "Why not?"

"I think that's enough questions for now. I thought that you were tired."

"Don't treat me like a child," he snapped back.

"I'm not treating you like anything." With that he rose from the bed and told Sasuke to sleep and reminded him that he would be outside the door should he need him.

He was unhappy. He lay there with his eyes closed, waiting for the dream world to take him. it did not. It left him feeling restless and uncomfortable.


	13. Chapter 12 Finally Understanding

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 12

Finally Understanding what was Kept from Him

For hours he laid in the darkness thinking about the new information that he had learned.

It pleased him that _he_ hadn't forgotten him. It pleased him that there was a possibility that he still wanted Sasuke near him. If he allowed himself a moment of that optimism again, there was a chance that he could be in love with Sasuke.

This made his heart pump and swell in a fluttering motion that he couldn't keep track of.

He rolled his eyes in the dark at himself. Years ago he would never have acted so sensitive.

A sound erupted in the silence and he strained his ears to focus on its origin. Someone had entered the apartment. He reached his senses out and felt the fox's chakra was still planted outside his door. He relaxed.

He felt excited at first. It was possible that _he_ had finally showed up. Perhaps he had tried to make it back in time for Sasuke's sentencing but could not get back until just now.

The excitement did not last long and fell away and faded into the black air around him. It was just the hawk. He stilled himself and listened in his disappointed state.

"How are you feeling with all this?" The hawk asked the fox.

"I'm really happy, you have no idea," the fox replied, a bit out of the character Sasuke had come to know. He wondered how the man could fall out of his formality and professionalism so quickly.

"Is he getting along with you?"

"Yeah, he listens to me. He doesn't call me names or anything. I feel like he trusts me." He could hear a smile in the voice and couldn't help but feel happy for it.

"Have you showed him what's under your mask yet?"

"No, I don't think that's such a good idea right now. Kakashi and Sakura-Chan came to visit him today."

"How did it go?" a curious voice asked.

"I don't think he was too impressed. It looked like he was having a hard time keeping up with them, but I think he was just tired. He asked them a lot of questions towards the end though."

"Of course he did. He's not stupid. You knew that he would." It came out as a superior tone in the air.

"I know, it's just difficult to watch them try to answer them."

There was a pause in the conversation and a muffled sound came from the other side of the door that he couldn't make out. He didn't move, hoping he could listen for more.

It was quiet for several minutes and when the voice broke the silence, it startled his half asleep state.

"There's something we need to talk about. I think you know that I understand what happened between you and him a few days ago."

Sasuke pressed himself harder into the bed as if it would somehow enhance his concentration. His body twitched at the memory of the first time Fox had come to him with his veins full of heat.

"Look I know it was wrong ok? I know I shouldn't have done it, but you gotta understand that I'd never do anything to hurt him." Fox was nervous. Sasuke could feel it all the way in the bed.

"I think you did hurt him. I saw the blood. I could smell what happened." It was as if the hawk was challenging the other Anbu guard. Sasuke did not like it. He had grown to respect the fox.

"I know, I just couldn't hold back anymore. I didn't know what she was gonna decide and I was so afraid. I didn't want to lose him and I guess I did it out of frustration. But I swear he didn't say no and he didn't fight me, he just let me."

"That doesn't make it alright. Did you ever stop to think that perhaps he didn't refuse you because you have authority over him? You're in charge of him, it doesn't give you the right to take advantage of him."

"Of course it doesn't make it alright, I know that. You just don't understand Sasuke. Even if he was dying, he'd fight against anything that he didn't agree with. He's not docile and he can take care of himself. And I know that I hurt him physically but I honestly don't think that he minded all that much. Besides it was obvious that he was thinking about Uzamaki Naruto the whole time, at least that's the name he scram a million times." At the end of this statement he could hear what sounded to be a bit of pride in the voice.

"Does that please you?" It was bitter.

"Of course it does." It was blunt.

"Just don't do anything that you'll regret later. You're my friend and I want you to be happy, but I don't want you spend your life wishing you hadn't done something just because it made you feel better short term." There was a pause before the guard continued, "I'm not so sure that the Uchiha is the best thing for that Uzamaki Naruto he likes so much. I think that he needs to evaluate the situation before he jumps head first into something with him as he does with everything else. You should remind him how good of a friend I am and that I exist. I'm sure that he remembers that I'm available."

His mind was filled with thoughts that caused his brain to become fuzzy as they clashed into one another. He took a deep breath and attempted to put them into sequential order.

He was pleased that this fox seemed to know his personality well and knew that he had a strong will to fight. He was pleased that he wasn't seen as weak.

He was confused. He didn't understand why the masked man would be happy that he had been thinking of someone else while they had had sex, if that's what it was counted as. Perhaps in other minds, it may have clicked into place much sooner, but not in his. He was exhausted and too emotionally unstable to see any connection, after all.

He was jealous. He did not like that Hawk was interested in his rival. He felt angry and betrayed by this man that had been civil towards him but secretly disliked him. He did not like this secrecy.

He was angry that he thought that Sasuke wasn't good enough for _him_. He understood that he had hurt him in many ways over the years, but he felt that he deserved this new chance he was given at life to show everyone that he could change. He loved him and that should have been enough for the hawk.

The guards switched their shifts and the fox left the apartment. He did not like it but supposed that he deserved a break from his company. Maybe he had a family at home that Sasuke was keeping him from.

He decided that he would ask the hawk more information in the morning and he would begin his new life in Konoha by exploring the new layout. He was unaware of where things were located after it had been rebuilt after Pain's rampage.

He would reintegrate himself back into village life and show _him_ that he could be a part of this world again. He knew this would make him more desirable to his rival. He had to admit to himself that he didn't care an awful lot about this place but the man that he loved did, so he thought that it was a good idea to become used to it.

He imagined the smile that he wanted to receive upon that man's return home from his mission and smiled into the darkness of the bedroom to himself.

In the morning, he found his body generally felt better than it had the day before. He was still tired but he was refreshed. He stretched, still getting used to being able to move around freely and twisted his body on the bed. He arched his back to snap a few vertebrae back into place. The cracking sound echoed and he found that he liked it quite a bit.

The hawk sat on a chair just outside the door where he expected him to be. He greeted him with bitterness in his voice and walked past him to the kitchen. A bit of his old arrogance clung to his form. He didn't mind that the man saw him in his undergarments.

The tea he found in a cabinet was hot and melted his throat. It fell into his stomach and warmed him from the inside out. The hawk joined him at the table and he allowed his old glare to form on his face again.

He opened his mouth slightly while still holding onto his cup and asked the same question he had asked the fox before.

"Do you think I deserve him?"

It caught the other man off guard. It was obvious that he did not expect to be confronted with this sort of question. He watched him in his stillness and waited for the answer.

"If you mean Naruto, no I don't. You've hurt him severely over the years, both before and after you left. I won't forgive you for that."

The anger he had felt last night welled into his stomach and forced its way out through the tone of his voice. "The whole point of me being here is to show him how sorry I am."

"I understand that and I'm sure that he will listen to what you have to say, but you weren't here to fully see the damage that you caused. You hurt him more than you can imagine. He's told me countless times before that you were his first bond, his first friendship, his first family. And when you left, he told me that it felt like his life was falling apart. I don't think you can even comprehend the amount of times I've caught him wondering if you were alright, or even if you were just alive. I think you can tell by now that he is a close friend to me and it hurt me so much to see him dodging and avoiding your name so that he wouldn't break down. He is important to me and I don't think that you deserve him. I don't believe that you are as sorry as you should be."

The words cut him open like the blade of his katana. It sliced his insides and allowed the anger to be absorbed into the wounds.

"You're right, I wasn't here to see it firsthand. But I have lived with all the things that I've done and all the pain that I've caused for years. I know that I shouldn't have left but I did and I do not regret the things that I've accomplished in my absence. It's the way it is and I cannot change it. If I wasn't sorry, I wouldn't have been able to return here ready to die just to apologize to him. What else can I do?"

"There's nothing you can do for me to believe otherwise and I certainly don't believe that you would make him very happy were you to become his lover. It's my business because it concerns a dear friend, but I suppose it doesn't matter if I think you deserve to be in his life in the end. His opinion is all that matters, but it would be wise of you to truly think it over and decide if opening up the wounds he's just recently mended is worth you being able to sleep with him."

He yelled. It was a loud disturbance in the otherwise calm kitchen. He was unhappy and he would let the other man in the room know about it.

"It's not about sex, I just want to be near him! I want his company and I want him to know how I feel about him. I want him to know how sorry I am and I want to know how he feels in return. Don't ever accuse me of just wanting to sleep with him, He's all I really have left in this life. I'm willing to take responsibility for all of the hurt I've caused him and I don't mind carrying it around forever. I just want things to be different." He sobered at his last sentence and looked down at his cooling tea.

He drank the rest of his tea in silence and allowed the hawk to stare at him in the way that he had always done. He contemplated breaking the cup, shattering it into pieces. But what would that prove? That he hadn't changed, that he couldn't be gentle with fragile things. That he still allowed his anger to get the best of him. So instead, he washed it in the sink and went back to bed.

The sheets were no longer warm from the body heat he had left behind earlier. He lay with his hands behind his head and his body flat. The ceiling disinterested him, but his eyes scanned and scrutinized it anyway. Originally he had planned on asking permission to venture outside but the conversation left him in a bad mood. His fingers ached, he wanted to hit something. He was good at brooding, angsting, acting like the teenager he had never gotten to be.

His age was not something he liked to think about, but he was already unhappy and it could not alter his mood now. He would turn nineteen soon. He was no longer a child. No, he had never been a child. He was getting older and he found that he was not ready for it. Nineteen was not old, but it was not young either in the shinobi world.

It hurt. His parents would be proud that he had avenged them, but disappointed that he was now an adult and he didn't yet have a family. He could picture the stern scowl on his father's masculine face and a soft setting frown on his mother's attractive round one.

A family. A family was something that he had once wanted even after he had met _him_. At first he had thought that the feelings would wear off and he would feel the same way about a woman someday. It wasn't as if he didn't find himself attracted to the female population, they were just not something he wanted, they were to fragile. None could compare to his best friend.

He allowed himself to slip back into that optimistic world that he had been visiting an awful lot lately and imagined himself having a family with his rival. How, it didn't matter, this was a daydream.

Their children would be brilliant, he decided. The two of them would give them lives so very different from the ones they had experienced themselves. They would not have to suffer through the loneliness that had haunted their parents. They would never feel unloved or forgotten. He would make sure that they would not lose their parents in the ways that their own parents had died.

He was not all that friendly, cuddly, or even soft, but he would love them. He would be a good father to them. _He_ would be a good father as well, he was sure of it. They would both get the family that they had always wanted to be a part of. They would never feel the emptiness of being alone as long as they had each other.

He snapped out of it. If that were even to be possible, it wouldn't happen for a very long time and that would require that his best friend love him back. He felt cold.

Yes, his parents would just have to be disappointed in their graves or in the afterlife, or wherever they had ended up, because he was in love with a man and he knew that he would never be able to love anyone else ever. He wanted to make his mother happy and his father proud, but it was a loss that he had to accept if he wanted to be content in this life.

To cheer himself up he reminded himself that he had been chased after and had been begged to be here. At one time he had been desired in some way. He had been wanted. He smiled.

The door made a sound. His fox was back. He heard a few words exchanged and felt the chakra come closer. It seemed that this guard couldn't stay away from him for too long. He closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

He heard the bedroom door open. It creaked, a fracture. For a moment he wished he had had the sliding doors of a traditional home that he had once possessed. They would have been much quieter. But that didn't matter right now.

He felt a weight on the bed, felt a gloved hand on his thigh.

"Sasuke," the weight addressed him. He lay still, willing his breaths to stay even.

"Sasuke, Hawk said that you two had a fight earlier."

He continued his charade and waited for the man to leave.

"I know that you're awake. Tell me what happened." It was a stern command, although it was not harsh.

He ignored the voice and drowned it out with the happier thoughts from earlier.

"Stop being such a bastard. Don't ignore me, Teme."

His eyes opened quickly and he lifted his head to check that this was the fox. A porcelain mask stared back at him. It was a strange clicking in his brain and he felt his heart speed up.

It was not possible. This fox was nothing like _him_. He was somewhat refined and professional. He was not as charismatic as his best friend and he was not nearly half as loud. He did not ache to reach out and touch Sasuke. He did not declare his victory over having Sasuke in the village. He did not possess the same enthusiasm.

Then he corrected himself. Yes, this man was similar to the one that he loved in some ways. He was gentle and he could be seen as almost kind. He understood Sasuke and did not pressure him to be any different than what he truly was.

He recalled the conversation he had overheard the night before. This man hadn't wanted to lose Sasuke to a death sentence. How could he lose him if he didn't own him in the first place? How could he have expressed such strong emotions to the hawk about him if he hadn't known him well?

He had taken Sasuke. He hadn't felt that he needed to ask permission and he did not regret it. He hadn't been disgusted with the condition of his body and he seemed truly happy that Sasuke was now almost free of punishment. He knew an awful lot about his best friend and he had been patient with Sasuke.

But it could not be. If it were, he would not have been tricked so easily. He would have recognized a loud voice, a hearty laugh, a playful verbal fight. There was none of this and so he concluded that it couldn't be. Could it? He decided his mind was playing tricks on him.

He took a breath. He sat up and gave the fox what he wanted.

"He told me that I didn't deserve him."

"Well, to be honest you really aren't his type. He's stoic himself, so he's often attracted to someone opposite of him. I mean, you're beautiful and totally worth a try, but he doesn't think that he can get along with you." A small chuckle echoed on the other side of that mask. It was a sound and a sentence structure that also was out of character for the fox.

He was confused for a second. The man that he loved was not stoic or quiet. He was irritated when he understood the joke. It had to be a joke. It had to have been obvious by now that he would never even think about wasting his time with anyone but _him_.

He decided to ignore the intended joke, "He said that I have hurt him too badly to be worthy of him. Am I wasting my time wanting him?"

He could not help but ask this. His bad mood returned and settled in his chest in the form of a depression. His mind became clouded over and his different emotions meshed together. It became difficult to decide which one to give into.

He could allow the depression and hopelessness to infect him and influence his immediate thoughts. He could let it pass through him like a chill.

He could be taken over by the anger he still felt towards the hawk. It would heat his insides and burn his skin. It would allow all of his frustrations to spill out of him, attached to this particular excuse. He would feel emptier afterward, but he decided that he was not willing to clean up the mess it would make. He was not willing to admit that his temper still boiled just as hot as it ever had within him.

He was afraid of what would happen if he allowed himself to fully evaluate the man that sat beside him on his bed. He was afraid that his suspicions were correct and he didn't quite know what to do with it. The thought of it brought many questions to sit within his mouth, ready to leave it at their first chance.

He contemplated if it were true and wasn't sure if he would feel relieved or angry. He wondered if he should begin begging. No, he had done that already. He would not beg unless it was absolutely necessary.

If it were true, he was not sure if he could hold himself back from doing something he would feel humiliated about later. Something like clinging to the other man as if he would die without the physical contact. Something like crying for the absurdity of it all. Something like screaming out his anger at such a trickery.

He sobered in his thoughts. If this fox was _him_, it was probably a secret kept away from Sasuke due to his job. He had been the one to interrogate and look after him, after all. Perhaps it was kept from him to aid him in something.

His revelations and decision making was interrupted by a saddened voice that had regained its sense of professionalism that he was much more used to.

"It's true that you've caused a lot of pain. You've made an in-repairable hole inside a lot of people that won't heal over. As for him, you left him feeling empty and alone. You won't ever understand how hard he tried to catch up to you. He just wanted to be by your side again. You've cracked him open deeper than the surface. It's all true, but you're not wasting your time. Love is never a waste, Sasuke no matter what the outcome is."

He tilted his head as if to allow the thoughts to pour out of his ears. The voice had been sad in a much too familiar way.

Yes, this was the man that he loved behind that mask and the same man that he had come to trust as he had sat in his chair in the darkness. This was the embodiment of everything that meant something to him sitting beside him. This was who he had been waiting for all this time. And this was the man that he had risked his life to return to.

It didn't make sense and he supposed that perhaps it was not meant to. He closed his eyes and made a decision to continue of thinking of the fox and _him_ as separate beings until he was granted the permission to do otherwise. He would play along in this game and see where he was led.

He kept to the same subject but changed the focus, "The hawk implied that I was only interested in him because I want to sleep with him. It made me angry because it's not true. You know that it's not true, right?"

If he could make this man understand than he could make _him_ understand as well. He would not have thrown his pride and freedom away for, as Suigetsu would have said, a fuck. He was not in this messed up situation and emotional tidal wave just for sex. He looked down at his hands and away from the mask to await an answer.

"Yeah, I know. I know you, and that doesn't seem like you. Besides I think that if you just wanted someone to go to bed with you, you wouldn't have picked him over all the people that throw themselves at you."

He looked up. He did not like this reply entirely, although a good bit of it was true.

"Why would you say that?"

"What, that you would have picked anyone else? Well, I'm sure that you've been with lots of other people that were much more attractive than him. I mean if you just wanted someone to sleep with, you probably would have picked someone better looking."

It angered him. He could hear his own breaths pick up and increase their pace.

"I am not a whore. I have only ever been with one person." He did not have to spell it out.

He watched the porcelain mask fall to look at the gloved hands in the man's lap. He watched a set of shoulders slump. He watched a quicker breath shake the body before him.

"I didn't know that. I'm sorry, Sasuke." He could tell a not so delightful expression played across the face under the mask. It didn't matter. He needed this man to know that he had only been taken by a single person and only twice ever.

The mask looked over at him and stared. He could feel those eyes behind it observing him as they had done on several other occasions. It was a hot stare, as if the solemnness that the Anbu guard had felt only seconds ago had been burned by the heat. He could sense that this man was proud or happy or relieved that he had been the only one that had ever gotten a chance to be inside Sasuke.

"I'm sorry," he said again and Sasuke decided that he wasn't angry about it, not really. If this truly was the man that he was in love with, then it was something he was alright with. It would mean that _he_ had wanted Sasuke so badly that he couldn't wait. It would mean that he was desired. It would mean that he could have feelings for him.

He placed his slender hand on a stiff shoulder and took in the feel. The bone was hard and the meat around it was muscle.

"It's alright. I'd rather you not do that again without permission though. And I'd rather not have you do that again at all if you think that it would make him angry with me," he added this last part to play along in the game he had decided this all was.

"I would never hurt you, you know?" It was a needy voice. It was one that he hadn't heard from this fox before.

"No, I don't know. I don't know you. But I do know that if it were him instead, he would never have done it to hurt me." Within his head he snickered at the way he was able to bend around who this person really was while letting him know what he thought of the person this guard was pretending not to be.

"You're right. You don't know me. And yes, I don't believe that he would have done that to you to hurt you either," the voice fell from under that mask.

It was silent between them. He waited within it for a confession. For an apology for fooling him all this time. A kiss. Anything. Nothing came, only a sigh from the other man.

"He still thinks of you all the time, you should know." The guard hung his head, as if Sasuke were able to see an expression on his face that would embarrass him.

He smiled his small smile and tried to catch a look from the other man with his dark eyes. He liked this. He liked that the fox was speaking in third person. Perhaps it was a way to admit the things that he could not say as himself. He would have liked to see that wide mouth say the words for itself though, but how could he complain? He was in the presence of someone he had a deep maddening affection for. This was his rival, and he would allow the man to say the necessary things in the way that he was most comfortable with.

He broke his own silence, "Do you think that he misses me?"

"Every day. Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow. The day after. He never stops missing you." The mask continued to look down.

A weight travelled from his chest and up into his throat. He hadn't expected such an answer. He hadn't expected to still be cared for as such. He had decided to continue this game. He had decided to allow the fox to be separate from the man that he loved and to allow that hidden mouth to express his emotions by speaking in third person. He reminded himself that he never went back on the decisions that he had made for himself, but he could not take this suspense any longer. Everything had to have a start or a beginning did it not? He needed a confession before the weight of it overtook him.

"How do you know?" He said to the fox.

The head picked up and looked his way. A hand went to the back of a scarf covered head and rubbed up and down, the indications of a nervous habit.

"I just know, I guess."

"Are you a fortune teller?" He smirked inside himself. It was the tone of voice that held smugness that he had used before on _him_. He wanted to see the reaction in the other man.

"Uh, no I'm not why?" Sasuke could tell that he had invoked a nervousness throughout the man on his bed.

"Then how do you 'just know' then?" Then he allowed himself to slip and outwardly smirked at his rival that was pretending to be a stranger.

"Sas'," the fox said and Sasuke could hear a big intake of breath. He knew that this man was taken with his old gesture of a smirk. He knew that he was admired then, by the way his name was said and by the way he had stolen that breath away.

He made the decision to change the direction of the conversation.

"Do you know when he will be back? I really want to be near him."

"I'm not sure when you can see him, but I can tell you that I think he would enjoy being near you too."

"You really think so?" He moved in closer to the body of the fox and whispered it.

Sasuke could hear the beating of the man's heart and he could almost feel the vibrations of the breaths raking through the air.

"Yes he will," said the fox.

It was quiet then. It stretched out over them like snow and left a cold ache where the absence of words were felt.

His body tingled. The cold refreshed him. It was a good sensation. He felt so full. Full of hope. A sliver of warmth in the snow storm.

He could not help himself. He leaned ever closer to the fox, to _him_ and allowed his chin to rest on the shoulder. It was hard where his bone touched the other man's. He looked up at the masked face with his dark eyes and attempted a content expression.

He felt the fox's body stiffen considerably and become nervous. Anxious with anticipation.

He let the words slip from his mouth in this attempt of seduction. Attempt to extract a confession. Attempt to kick start the new life that he wanted.

"I would have chosen him anyway. He's beautiful." He turned his head and allowed his cheek to replace his chin. Another hand came up to brush his own hair away from his eyes as it fell across his face from the pull of gravity.

There seemed to be nothing that the man could say to him. Perhaps there were no words available at the time. It didn't matter. The man he loved was sitting here with him, within his second chance of having a life.

He allowed himself to fall deeper within his thoughts and spoke them aloud.

"I wish the world would have worked out differently. If this village hadn't forced my brother to sacrifice our family, I would have never left here in the first place." He moved his head to brush his lips against the shoulder. The fabric slid across the softness of his mouth and he decided that he wished the shoulder had been bare where he touched it.

"It wouldn't have mattered. You would have still left for some reason or another. You were meant to become powerful. Sure, I think both you and I know that you would have been able to become strong here, but you still needed to leave in order to become the person that you are today. I think you needed to completely lose your mind as you had, before you were able to regain any of your sanity at all."

The words chilled him and forced that warm sliver that had entered him earlier to bleed out of through his skin. It was true, he supposed. He may have found some reason to leave anyway, but he honestly believed that it could have been much different. He wouldn't have gone alone. He wouldn't have done the same things that he had in order to gain power. He would have found a different way.

He hadn't lost his mind. No, he had. He had lost his mind, but not entirely. Hearing the man that he loved say it both offended him and saddened him, a deep well he couldn't figure out how to get out of.

"I wasn't crazy," he said.

"You were and that's ok," the fox let him know.

It angered him, but not as much as he wanted it to. He should have been angry and mad. He should have been disgusted.

He had just been insulted. He had been forced to spend over a month in a wooden chair without his sight and made to eat soup that he had grown sick of. He had been lied to and deceived by the only person that he had ever loved and the game seemed too deep to get out of. He should have been raging.

But he wasn't. He wasn't as upset as he could have been, as he would have been a year ago. Not all that long ago he would have burst with the anger and the heat and he would have caused a mad destruction in response to these things.

But he didn't. He had changed and he thought that perhaps it was a good thing. Maybe it was for the best that he was no longer the way he was. He wanted to start over again, didn't he?

Besides, he knew the current argument was valid. He had gone insane after his brother's death. He had lost his footing on the ground but he had kept going anyway, forcing himself to never look back.

He was looking back now, and he wished that he could go back and paint the past in different colors than what it already was.

This was his rival. Rivals fight and argue, do they not?

"I wasn't crazy," he said again to invoke a reaction.

"Sasuke! You were so far gone, we couldn't even talk to you. You don't understand how cold your eyes were. Your chakra wasn't even the same anymore. You weren't yourself, not for a long time after Itachi died."

The outburst from the fox had forced him to move his face away from the shoulder he had been resting it upon. He allowed the words to sink deep into him and settle themselves in the bottom of him.

He looked down at his hands, almost in disbelief. This really was _him_, then. This really was the man he loved. No more doubts. No more guesses. No more games. This was him. This was his rival, his best friend, and the idiot that he hadn't been able to get out of his mind.

He sat in the quiet and allowed whatever the fox wanted to happen, to happen. He waited. He waited but nothing came.

"Sasuke, you were gone," the fox said as he looked over at him from behind his mask.

Nothing else was said. The man lifted himself up from the bed with two strong gloved hands and walked to the door without looking back to Sasuke.


	14. Chapter 13 She Had Words For Him

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 13

She Had Words For Him

_The trees grew tight together and the leaves had created a barrier to keep him out. The smell of the forest overpowered that of his sweat. He slowed down in his fast pace, searching for an opening in the branches that he could slip through. _

_He looked behind him to see how close his pursuers had come to him and panicked slightly for a second. They were fast. No, only one of them had caught up to him._

_He could hear the man's breath as he came closer and he allowed his eyes to continue to scan for a space large enough for his body to fit._

_There was none and he realized that he was trapped. The man came ever closer. That breath, loud with excitement and exhaustion. He could hear a heartbeat pounding and swelling. He thought that perhaps it was his own._

_Suddenly a strong hand was around his wrist. He couldn't remember when the man had gotten quite that close._

_Then the wrist was pulled and blue eyes scrutinized him and begged him without words to stop this game of tag._

_He shook his head in silence. He could not stop running, there was too much he had left to accomplish. What good would he be if he abandoned his goal? What would his family think of him? It was a decision that he had made, there was no going back._

_But those eyes never left his and the tugging on his wrist became harder. His heart pounded louder and he thought that maybe he was close to giving in._

_The world was disorganized and sketchy. He couldn't keep up and time went quicker than he expected it to._

_He was standing on the ground, no longer searching in the branches. The grass was moist with the rain that had fallen only hours ago and the leaves rustled their quiet song in the wind._

_But that hand on his wrist remained. Those eyes still pleaded. That beating drum in his head still paced its endless track._

_He looked down at the hand and decided that perhaps it was alright to give it what it wanted, if only for a few seconds._

_He allowed it to pull him closer into the other man and he felt another hand reach around him to land on his lower back._

"_Just come home, Sasuke. That's all I want. That's all I've ever wanted. Please Teme please," a voice that he had heard only recently whispered into his ear. It was a sad sound. A lonely sound. A desperate sound._

_And then he decided that this was a dream, and so he gave in to the temptation. He lifted his free arm up and placed it around a stiff shoulder while pushing his wrist and the hand closer into that body that held him tight. _

_He sighed a break in the silence and rubbed his face on the skin of an exposed neck. He felt a sense of peace. This was what should have happened, he guessed._

_He did not want to give up the opportunity that presented itself within this dream. He lifted his head up to the warm ear and whispered back, "Please take me home."_

_A hurried mouth found his and his entire existence was being tasted with a tongue. It searched and scanned his lips for any imperfections and he knew that he was being memorized._

_They were on the ground then, a tan hand tangled in his hair. It hurt, the way it pulled him in closer and commanded him every which way._

_He didn't mind. It was a good pain. He wished it was real._

_Another hand made its way inside the white shirt he had at one time thought was a good idea to run around in. It caressed his strong stomach muscles and brushed briefly inside his navel. It tickled but he wanted more._

_His own fingers pulled back at that yellow hair and he found that it was so much more satisfying than he had expected. The strands slid in between his fingers and he felt the pads of his fingertips threaten to break and cut from their coarseness._

_His other hand landed on the one that was now on his stomach. He guided it up and down the skin on his torso and willed it lower._

_This was a dream. This was a fantasy. How could he resist?_

_He urged the hand to explore lower and gasped when it found what he had been wanting it to. The man rubbed his palm over the bulge that had formed in his pants and it was all he could do to refrain from thrusting his hips._

_That mouth was on all the bare skin that it could reach and the fire ignited even hotter than he imagined it could. This was so different from when he had been taken within his little prison. It was so different now that he knew who was touching him. It was better this way, there was no mask to keep them apart. Even his own that he wore to protect his emotions and thoughts had fallen away and cracked as it hit the ground._

_He closed his eyes and reveled in the feel of those lips over the expanse of his skin._

_When he opened them, his body was bare and an old orange jacket was placed underneath of him. Its soft fabric rubbed against the skin on his back and he decided that perhaps this was the way that his first time should have been. With the wet grass and the damp air. The trees hiding them away from the sky. A makeshift bed underneath him. A sweaty blue eyed blonde rival above him._

_His eyes took in the curves of the muscle of the man on top of him. The seal drawn on a hard belly. The way the yellow hair fell into a serious face. The way the mouth fell open, admiring the one beneath him._

_He suddenly felt self-conscious, being stared at and observed. Then he laughed inside his mind. He had been observed for such a very long time in the waking world and he had already been taken when he looked his worst. What more could he be afraid of the man discovering?_

_He felt a hardness rub against his own erection and he lost the focus in his sight. It was delicious. It was inspiring. It was maddening. _

_He couldn't help himself and he bucked his body into the hips that grinded down into him and he begged the friction to never stop._

_The hand that had been on his chest earlier wound itself around his member and moved him in just the way he liked. He thrust into the hand and felt his own body aching to reach out and grab the man to repay such kindness. His hand was slapped away with a force that he hadn't seen coming._

_Then the eyes hardened and the breaths became more animalistic. The pace quickened and he couldn't breathe. His neck was bitten as it had been before and he knew that blood was running into the ground from his wound._

"_I love you," he said to the dream version of the man he loved. No words were returned. Why had he expected them to be?_

_The touching became unbearable and he found that he couldn't last any longer. His reached up and pushed that face into his own and kissed the man as hard as he could as he arched his back._

_His organism hit him like cold water and his breath was stolen away. As the liquid shot from him, he called that name as he had before and he found himself begging not to wake up yet. _

_He opened his eyes and then the man was gone. There was no evidence of his presence. He lay there with the remains of his pleasure spread out over his body and drying blood creeping from his neck._

_The jacket was gone from underneath him and he felt the cool earth infecting him with a loneliness. He sat up and pulled his knees to his chest as he hadn't done since he was a child and looked up to the trees. _

_He sighed and rubbed his face with a sweaty hand and scowled from underneath it. There, there was an opening in the leaves at last and now the decision to keep running or not was his to make._

_He felt the pressure and the stress of making such a commitment and reminded himself to choose wisely. He did not go back on any of the decisions that he made, after all._

He woke up to stare at the ceiling. His body felt emptier and a darkness settled in his chest. He moved his body to regain some of his consciousness.

His waist was wet and then he remembered his dream. He hadn't had such a thing happen to him since he was an adolescent. Embarrassment swirled in his stomach and he wasn't sure what was to be done now.

The dream had been strange. A combination of things he desired and feared all mixed together in a frustrating bundle his mind had created for him.

The touching had been rough and as he reflected upon it, he found that he didn't mind. What had scared him was the look on his rival's face. It had shown anger and his own frustrations towards Sasuke.

He deserved it, he supposed. He had done so many things to provoke those feelings in the other man and he knew that there was nothing else he could do but display his changes.

The choices that he was presented with at the end of the dream left him worried that he was not truly here to stay. No, he corrected himself. He would not leave again unless _he_ wanted him to. This place was stuck with him until then and not a moment before.

He really had changed, he reminded himself. Years ago he would never had thought such a thing. Years ago, he would be plotting and scheming his escape. Not anymore.

The words he had said into that ear infected his mind like a fever too hot to cure. They were something he had willed his mouth to say so many times over the years. They were a wish that he had pushed to the back of him and had begged not to ever resurface into the world.

_He_ would have loved to hear them. He would have ached to hear Sasuke's mouth form the words. He would have reached out and grabbed him, dragging him all the way back here.

Yes, that it what he would have done. If he was able to predict something that could have happened years ago, then maybe the man did feel some kind of broken apart love for Sasuke. Maybe that was why he had chased and chased until he had had enough.

His mind reminded him of what had happened the night before. Fox, _he, _had confessed his identity in a roundabout way. He had revealed so much more than he had planned to Sasuke and he had walked away, leaving a deep confusion to overtake him.

He was unsure of what was to come next and he found that he was anxious. He wondered if he should continue to pretend that he didn't know. He wondered if he should come out and demand a confession. He wondered if he should be angry, sad, relieved. He wondered if he should allow the frustration to completely overtake him and break down and cry.

This last part was a large possibility. He had lost control of his emotions over the last month and his cool composer had melted away on the day that he had chosen to come back here.

It didn't matter. He would improvise when he came to it. He would allow his emotions to lead him instead of what he thought would allow his dignity and pride to remain untouched.

For now he needed to clean up the mess that he had made. He rose from the bed and after cleaning himself up with cold water from the bathroom sink, changed into a dark pair of pants he had been given from one of the draws he found. The fabric was soft on the skin of his legs.

What had been left on the sheets was just a small wet mark and he decided that he would clean it up with a damp cloth instead of sending it to the laundry.

When he was finished, he used his senses to find the chakra of either Anbu guard within the apartment. When he found none, he ventured out into the kitchen.

He didn't understand why he was left alone. He concentrated harder. There. He found them just outside a window. Outside of the front door. There were three of them. The fox was not present.

Perhaps he was avoiding Sasuke. Perhaps he wouldn't be back.

He let his head fall onto his hands as they sat on the table, waiting for something to fill them. He allowed his breaths to deepen and he listened to the sounds they made as they entered and exited his body.

He sat there and waited for a distraction. When it came he was relieved for the silence to be interrupted within his head.

He lifted his head and then replaced it. It was her again. He had missed her, but not enough to want her company at the moment. She was not what he had expected and he felt the disappointment spread throughout him like a slow killing disease.

She had entered without knocking, and he wasn't the least bit surprised that she didn't. She had always assumed that she was welcome within his life. She had always felt entitled to his company. It didn't matter. Perhaps she would distract him.

Her small delicate smile was right where it was intended to be. Her small face lit up with the upturn of her lips and she was easily one of the prettiest women he had known. Prettiest yes, most beautiful, no.

But that didn't matter either. She stood in front of him at the table and held her place until he gave her his full attention.

She brushed a few care free strands of pale pink hair behind her ear and placed what was in her hands on the table after deciding that Sasuke would not help her with them.

"Good morning, Sasuke-Kun. I brought you some groceries before I leave on my mission. I thought you'd want something healthier than instant foods." She closed one eye as she often did when she thought that she was being cute. He hated the way she knew that she was beautiful.

"I have food here. Someone stocked my kitchen before I got here." He was cold to her. He reminded himself that he had changed over his time here and that he had decided to be a different person from then on, but he couldn't in that moment.

The emotions he had been feeling since the night before were just too overwhelming for him to pretend that he wasn't jealous of her. To pretend that he didn't know that he had been lied to. To pretend that the only thing on his mind wasn't that man behind the fox mask.

She still held that small smile and raised her chin a bit higher so that the sun would catch her high cheekbones and illuminate her softly arched lips.

"Oh, it's for this afternoon. I thought we could have lunch together, just you and me. I brought ingredients to cook for you."

It was true that he had wanted her kindness and he had wanted to be adored, but he found that she was not named first on his list of priorities that he had drawn within his head.

He was reminded of the mock argument between the fox and him. His head was constantly a battlefield and never rested in its assaults on his sanity. More than one time over the last years it had been broken down with the overabundance of attacks. His mind was raging a war with itself over the items on that list.

She would be half way down it if it were to be written on paper. Yes someday, but not today.

"I have plans for this afternoon," he said.

Her face didn't fall as he thought that it would.

"Oh come now, Sasuke-Kun. You know that I know you can't leave your apartment without permission and I was just in to see Tsunade-Sama and she didn't say anything about you leaving today."

He was always the one to know the reply to ever comment.

"Yes permission from Tsunade or one of my guards. I could have asked one of them. Besides, plans do not always mean going out," he said it with a serious face to express that he was annoyed. He wondered since when his business of activities had become hers?

"Then what is it that you have planned that you can't have lunch with me?" She pulled a chair opposite of him and sat down, placing her hands on her lap.

"I'm waiting for someone," he said.

She sighed a huffing sound and looked off from his face for a few seconds before returning them to scan his scowl.

"You can't just sit around waiting on someone to come back into your life, you have to move on and find something else to do."

He almost laughed at her. He wondered if she had truly evaluated her words before she allowed them to slip out of that little pink mouth of hers.

"Perhaps you should follow your own advice, Sakura." His mouth was a flat line and he allowed his eyes to study her as if offering a challenge. As if daring her to deny it after she processed her own statement. As if urging her to admit that he was right and that she was wrong. He did love it when she praised him after all.

Then her face finally did fall and he watched her eyes catch on to her unpainted fingernails. Her hands had always looked so elegant, even now, but they had gone through many years of training. Had healed many wounds. Had broken down many walls with one skilled clenched fist.

Her voice came out quieter than it had and he saw the sadness spill across her pale leaf colored eyes.

"You're right. I have waited and waited, just as many of us have, and it's true that I need to move on at some point. But I just wanted to try one last time. I just wanted to show you that it's still possible for you and I to have a stronger bond, to maybe be better friends, and ultimately to be together. I just can't let go of my feelings without trying again. I thought it might be different now that you don't have anywhere else to be or anything to distract you."

He let the words echo in his ears and he suddenly became highly irritated. He couldn't understand why she would still attempt something that he had been telling her all along wouldn't work.

"Sakura, what makes you think that it would be different when from the beginning there was nothing more than teamwork that was between us?" he asked her.

Her face became a slight shade of pink and her eyes produced that wet look they had always done when she had become upset.

"Why do you reject me so? All I ever wanted was for you to give me a chance, and all you ever did was reject me? What is so wrong with me that you won't even try?" Her voice had become louder and higher pitched than before and the water finally fell from those eyes.

He saw the devastation and the confusion on her face and thought of himself. He was very good at doing that, wasn't he? He thought about his own confusion and reminded himself that he could be rejected in a matter of minutes later on when he got the chance to address things with his rival.

He allowed her devastation to become an imitation and foretelling of his own. It passed through him like a chill and brought bumps to rest on the surface of his skin. The wave made him unpleasantly tingle and he found that he could identify with her emotions.

He could be cast aside just as easily as he had dismissed her. He feared it. He would give anything to prevent it, but it was possible and it was something that she was feeling now. It was something that she had felt for years, he knew.

He let out a breath and reached out his hands across the table to urge her to place hers in his. It was not a gesture he would have normally done, but he decided that it might have possibly offered her some sort of comfort in all of this. He would be kind to her. This could happen to him sooner than he would like it too.

She looked at him for a few seconds to determine if it was a trick of some kind. He supposed that she had decided that it was safe when he made the effort to soften his face.

She placed her small hands within his and he rubbed the pads of his thumbs over the knuckle bones on which they rested upon.

It was something that he had seen his mother do to his brother once when he had come home from an especially hard mission and again when Itachi had had a small disagreement with his lover. He had been young and didn't understand how it could ever have a calming effect but as he tried it out now, he saw that it did just that to Sakura.

Her body had become less tense and she relaxed in his grip. He could tell that she was anticipating a change of mind from him. He would disappoint her again as he had done so many times before.

"Sakura-Chan. I think this is something that we really needed to talk about sooner than now, and I'm sorry that I wasn't able to offer it to you until today. You have to understand that since the beginning, even when we were kids, I haven't been able to love anyone because I had already decided who I wanted to be with. It wasn't an outward decision, it was subconscious, I think." He let his voice settle in her ears and he looked at her to see if she would open her mouth.

The water from her eyes had stopped when his hands touched her fingers, but the look on her face remained unchanged. Her mouth stayed tightly closed and so he took it as a cue to continue.

"I don't know how to say this any other way, but I don't think I could ever love you even if that hadn't been so. You aren't what I'm looking for in this life and I don't believe I'm truly what you want either. I think you were attracted to me because of my family name, my appearance, and my skills. I don't believe that my personality had any part in it, because I don't know how it could. I was unkind to you. And I think you held on to that infatuation all this time and named it love because maybe you thought I would change or I would become someone different."

He paused and waited. Nothing happened. She tilted her head downward and brought her eyebrows closer together what could have been disappointment and anger. He had expected an outburst. A loud sob at the mention of his distaste for her when involving romance. But no words left her mouth yet.

"I haven't changed, well I have recently, but not in the way that you had probably expected me to. I am sorry to upset you, but I think it's something that you need to hear because I've been telling you for years and in not so nice ways. Each time I have, it's like you ignore me because it's not something that you want to hear. I don't love you. I don't love you because I am already in love and because your personality is not something that I want in partner. You're beautiful and you're intelligent and you are talented at what you do, but it's not enough for me. I know that I am selfish and I am cruel in saying it, but it's the truth."

He watched the pure rage and dizzying anger rise in her and he watched her move her head to look away from him in a jerking motion. He knew that her adrenaline had ignited and he could almost hear the thumping of her heart. She pulled her hands away back across the table and crossed her arms over her chest as if to create a barrier between him and her vital organs. Her voice was loud and it was filled with the intent to be hateful.

"And what's so great about him? Huh? You've said so many times before what an idiot he is! He's dumb and he's too impulsive. He's way too loud and he never shuts up. How is it that you can love someone like him but not me? And even beyond that, you tried to kill him. You drove your hand through his chest! You fought him every chance you got and when you were still with us, you treated him horribly. You tried to sever the messed up bond you had with him. What's so wonderful about him that he's suddenly so important to you? Why don't I matter?"

Her words bit him. Left his insides to bleed. Cut his ears split open. He didn't want to be mean, he reminded himself that he was trying to be kind and calm.

"Are you really interested, or are you just trying to pick at the reasons you think I shouldn't be in love with him?"

"I really want to know. I want to know how someone like you could choose a person like him over me. And I want to know how your feelings for him can be so different than they were a year or two ago, how can you hate someone but suddenly love them? It doesn't make sense and even though I think he's not good enough for you, what makes you think that _you're _good enough for him? All he's ever done was try to catch up to you and you've always pushed him away."

He pulled his own hands back now from where his arms had stretched them to land and placed them on the edge of the table, gripping it as if it were a lifeline.

"You can't hate someone without loving them and vice versa. It wasn't suddenly. I told you before that it was always there. It was that way from the beginning, I just didn't recognize it at first and then later I tried to ignore it. I could list for you all the reasons that I love him, but it wouldn't make you feel any better. I just want you to understand that it's not a new feeling and that I didn't want to hurt him. Not ever. I. Just. I just had things that I had to accomplish and he wouldn't allow me to do them without getting in my way. You will never get that it was something I had to do."

Another pause. Another slight silence as he thought of what to say next.

"I haven't acted upon any of this before because I couldn't allow it to distract me from my purpose. I have accomplished everything that I set out to do and so there was nothing else left to do before I die, but to return and let him keep that promise he made to you and maybe somehow show him how I feel. After I got here, I decided that I wasn't ready for death and that I needed to see him, to hear him, to know how he felt about me. A rejection, returned feelings, hatred, anything. I've just decided right now that I need him. I need him."

The water returned. Perhaps it was not what she wanted to hear. Maybe it was. He didn't know. It didn't matter. He was reminded that he could be in her place eventually.

"He is not better than you. He is just better for me. My list of qualities and characteristics that I find appealing in him is long, but I love his determination as he followed me although I wouldn't back down, his ability to find the smallest light within any dark moment or thing, and the look he gets when he accomplishes something. When they kept me where they did, I decided that I wasn't ready to die because I wasn't ready to pass up another chance of being by his side again. I have messed up, I know, and I have caused everyone so much pain, but I am truly sorry. I don't regret doing the outline of the things that I've done, but I do regret having to hurt anyone in the process. Like I said before, he was in my way, but I think that I mostly targeted him first because I wanted to erase him. I didn't want him dead and I didn't really want him to hurt, but I wanted to be able to forget about him. I was so wrong and now although I have apologized so many times, I don't know if I'm able to fix it. Like you, I just want to try."

He was done. He would allow her to think anything that she wanted to. There was nothing else that he could do but tell her in a more detailed and complex way that he didn't love her because of her personality and that he did love _him_ because of his. He wanted her to know that he understood his mistakes and that this whole entire situation was because he wanted to fix it.

If she did not believe him, then he supposed there was nothing else that he could do.

He watched her attempt at a grimace become much more loosened and less angry. It became more of a solemn look and portrayed the sadness she must have been feeling. He was sorry. He was sorry because he could understand her anger and her hurt.

But she was a sophisticated woman. She was an intelligent woman. She was a very close friend of her blonde teammate and it was very possible that she was still that man's love interest. She would not allow her outburst from earlier to reveal the childishness that she still secretly harbored within her heart. She changed her demeanor and returned back into that well skilled medical nin that she was.

He watched her wipe the trailing tears from her face with a straightened finger and heard her inhale the water from her nose back into her head with a small sniffle. She let out a breath and placed a hand against the bone that signified the connection of her neck and chest, an attempt to comfort herself.

"That promise was never for me. It was always for himself. Keeping it was always the only thing that he thought about, even after the years when I had given up hope myself. He wanted you back, and he wanted you for himself." Her voice was small. It was as if she was reflecting on something.

He didn't say anything. He couldn't. He wasn't ready yet. Wasn't ready to hear what she had to say.

"It's not my place to tell you why that was, but it was never for me. They said that you were different, the guards, Tsunade. I didn't believe them. I mean, it's not like you were so perfect before, I just didn't expect you to be so much more emotional. I didn't expect you to be more sensitive and I didn't expect you to only be that way because of Naruto-Kun. I thought maybe since I heard that you had changed, that maybe it would be for me instead. I was wrong, and I know that that should be ok. I'm upset now, but I know that you can't help how you feel. Kakashi Sensei always told us that, you weren't here to hear it, but maybe it would have helped you a lot sooner than now. Maybe it was just an infatuation, but I still feel it, and I guess if you love someone than you want them to be happy. At the moment, I'm angry and I want you to be rejected just like me, but I know that's a lie. I do want you to be happy. Whether you deserve it or not, is not something I'm going to think about because I just _want_ you to be, even if it's not with me."

He closed his eyes. In the darkness he could feel the appreciation he had for her. He could feel the admiration of her rationality. He could remember the reasons that he had missed her before. When he opened them again, he gave a small smile to her in a way to express his gratitude.

"Sakura, you have always been kind to me."

Then she smiled that half satisfied smile she was able to use so well when she was hiding her discontentment. He watched her form the words with her pink lips, now swollen from her rage and because she had cried.

"Sasuke. We looked and looked for you and he chased you like crazy. When you finally get the chance to confront him, it might not turn out the way you hope it will. Some of the damage that you've caused is in-repairable. I just think that you should remember that he never gave up until he had to and even when you rejected him and pushed him away, it made him just want to be even closer to you. Friendships work that way sometimes."

It pleased him. He'd be lying to himself if he claimed that it didn't. It really did. It pleased him that he had had such an effect on the other man. It pleased him that he was able to remember the sensations that he had pushed to the back of his mind of how the man's voice held so much _need_. She was right, it could possibly not happen the way his heart wished it would, but he did feel comfort from her admittance.

He needed to know why the man had stopped. It was a nagging feeling that made him itch.

"Why then? Why did he stop looking for me?"

"He just had to. It's something that you'll have to ask him. I don't really know, he just said that he had to. He was the only one leading the search, so everyone else stopped as well. I think sometimes that after a while we only looked for you for his sake. It was pathetic towards the end." He could see her watching his ink well eyes and knew that she wanted to tell him so much more than what she was allowed to.

"Why was it pathetic?" He asked.

"It just was. We would search and search for you when we weren't on other missions and he would beg her to make it an official mission so that we could spend more time away from Konoha looking. It was almost like he was obsessed. He'd wander off for days from the village, without telling any of us and he would swear up and down that he had seen you, but we all knew it was his mind telling him things. He wasn't crazy or anything, he just. He just wanted to find you so bad that I think he thought the dreams he was having at night were what really happened when he was awake. I don't think he could tell the difference. I guess he was fine in everything else, just not when he went looking."

She rested her forehead on a hand held up by an elbow and looked at the table, in thought as she continued.

"He wouldn't let any of us even so much as suggest that you were a lost cause either. We weren't allowed to say anything like that we didn't think you were coming back or that we wouldn't be able to find you. He'd get so mad and say that he knew that you'd come to your senses someday and that he wouldn't give up on any of his friends. Kakashi stopped going with us because he couldn't stand when he had to tell Naruto that it was time to go home. He just couldn't lie to him anymore. he used to say that we would find you next time, that we would convince you next we saw you. It was a lie because even, he himself, didn't think it was true."

He rested his chin on his entangled hands that he had propped up on the table. It was something he hadn't done since he had been in the academy. He contemplated her words and he felt his heart create a crack along the surface. He could not imagine the person he loved ever having been so defeated. He could not take the thought of the pain he must have made that man feel when he had returned home empty handed without Sasuke.

He felt his eyes sting. No, he would not cry in front of her. Perhaps she would appreciate the new tenderness that he had developed, but he did not want to say all of the reasons he should not be forgiven out loud.

Instead he found that he couldn't move his mouth anymore at all. He sat there in his deemed thinking position and looked at her as if he could study the way she had thought he had once belonged to her. It was a mute effort, but it didn't matter. He could still pretend to himself that he was thinking on it. He needed anything to drown out the din that had sounded of in his head.

Several minutes passed by them as they sat at the wooden table in the kitchen, each within their own mind until she spoke. The sound pushed him out of his thoughts and caused him to intake a large inhalation as if he had just come back to life.

"I think I should go. You have plans anyway, don't you?" She stood to leave and gestured to the bag of forgotten groceries that had been pushed to one side of the table away from their conversation, to remind him that they needed to be put away.

He stood after her and nodded his head. He reached his hand out towards the door to suggest that he would see her out.

When she replaced her shoes just inside his door and her hand fell awkwardly positioned on the door knob, he remembered to invite her back.

"You can come back sometime, if you want to." He was still not very good at this polite thing.

After she agreed, he watched her walk across the wooden porch and past the other doors that belonged to his neighbors. He briefly wondered what they thought about having the last Uchiha living next to them. He wondered what they thought when they heard loud voices and fights coming from his apartment. He thought about what they would say about what ever words would be exchanged later on with _him_. It wasn't important. Their opinion was not needed and thus did not matter to him.

He decided that after all he had learned from her and after all of the fears that had surfaced in him, it would not do to over think them without the man in question present. He decided that he would not touch these issues within his mind until he could talk about them.

He made his way to the couch and tried to find interest in the television. It didn't work.

He picked a scroll from the shelf. It was something he had already read.

He scanned the titles of the Make Out Paradise that was in plain sight. He had read them as well. Sound had offered him a lot of free time when he wasn't training and there had been an awful lot of the series' fans there. He had found them interesting, he would attempt to read one again.

It was no use. The romantic tendencies only reminded himself of the changes in his attitude and the more erotic scenes left his head dizzy with the memory of _his_ touch. It became too much as he thought of the confusing violent need satisfying dream he had had the night before.

The novel was forgotten and he decided to lay his back flat against the length of the couch. His eyes closed as he tried to remember the sound of the voice that begged. The fingers that had caressed. The hands that had squeezed and stroked. Those eyes that hadn't ever left his.

He then thought about what it had been like to have someone inside him. Then he allowed the information to finally sink into him. The man that he was in love with, had been inside him, had brought him pleasure, and more importantly had allowed Sasuke to be any sort of intimate with him at all.

Perhaps it was only, as he had thought when the fox was just a fox, a means of release. But the possibility that it wasn't, made his stomach tighten and the anticipation worsen.

Yes, _he_ had been inside him. His rival, his closest friend, his idiot, had taken him and he had taken him with so much need and desire that the combination would have been too delicious to comprehend had Sasuke gotten to see the look on the man's face.

He allowed himself to grow hard at the memory of the wall against his back, the hardness placed against his entrance, the ragged and uneven breaths at his neck.

He opened his eyes and moved one slender hand down the surface of his stomach until it was able to slide under the waist of his sweat pants. He took a deeper breath when his fingertips brushed against the soft and thick hairs he found there.

He immersed his whole hand below his waist and wrapped it around the hardness that had begun to twitch and leak.

He touched the tip first and spread the wetness over it. A fingertip glided over the length, spreading it over the smooth skin.

He could feel his veins threatening to burst from the skin and he could swear that he felt the blood pump through them as all of it exited his brain and traveled there.

It felt good. He teased himself this way and imagined that it was his rival doing this to him. He pictured tan fingers tracing his every outline. Blue eyes watching him move slightly at the sensation. A pouty mouth begging Sasuke for a kiss.

He rubbed the length with his open palm from base to tip and took in the feel of skin touching such a sensitive place.

He couldn't help himself any longer. He pushed the waist of his trousers a small way down his thighs and decided to grasp his member with a firm grip. It ached to be touched. He imagined a tan set of fingers were holding him.

He thought about a bright smile emerging at the sight of Sasuke's naked form, laid out and begging to be kissed with that loud mouth. He remembered the _hurt_ and agonizing _need_ in the other man as he had entered him and held him against that wall and it sent a deep want throughout his chest and clouded his mind in a fog.

He wondered what it would be like to have his best friend touch him with the tenderness he had always shown towards Sasuke and the cool professional demeanor that he had presented as the fox. He wondered how the mixture would settle and show itself to him in a situation such as this. He wondered how it would come out as the man stared down at Sasuke's pale face.

It would be enticing. It would produce so much desire in him. It would bring Sasuke to his knees.

He took a sharp intake of breath as he began to move his hand up and down his erection in a slow pace. The sensation heated up his body and made a pink blush spread across his bare chest, making it look like small flowers had bloomed there.

He started out the pace with a slow rhythm as he used his imagination and the memory of his dream to pretend that he was not doing this to himself. After he got a good mental picture of what he wanted to happen, he picked it up and began to breathe harder.

He tingled all over. The pleasure swept through him and an unsettled feeling in his stomach formed. It would not be resolved until he hit his climax. It felt unbearable. It felt like something hungry, always wanting more.

He would give it more. He touched faster. He twisted his hand in a small circle over it and reached his other hand to down further to hold that soft pouch of nerves below his member. He rubbed the sensitive skin that he found there with a careful pad of his thumb. He moved it also in a small circle and made a hissing sound as the air left his clenched jaw.

He contemplated what it would be like to have the man he craved to be between his legs at this moment. In his mind he saw a head of yellow hair as a hot mouth wrapped around him. he remembered that kiss on the inside of his thigh that he had received the second time that he had been taken, and imagined those lips on the head of his cock.

He thought about a wet tongue licking patterns into his skin and his loins began to burn. He thrust his hips in the air and into his closed hand. This movement felt good and he didn't know how he would be able to stop himself from continuing.

It didn't matter. he was alone. The man hadn't returned. He didn't care what the guards thought of him if they had been watching. It all didn't matter, it felt too good to stop.

He kept up this movement and squeezed himself harder. He grinded his teeth. He closed his eyes and saw a hand in his hair. His ears could swear they heard his name being called into the air around him as it had on the first night that the mysterious man had spoken it aloud.

He wanted to be called on over and over again. He remembered how the cock inside him had tensed and became as ridged as possible before it had released its seed inside him. It made him dizzy. He couldn't hold it in.

He came into his hands with a final thrust held his hips into the air where they had stopped. He allowed himself to feel the effects of his release and tried to slow his breaths.

He thought about how the fox had patiently cleaned him up and applied some sort of balm on his skin to sooth the stinging. He thought about how gentle that gesture had been.

He let his hips fall back down to the couch cushion and laid still, listening to the sound that his heart made.

After a few seconds of the afterglow, he slowly pulled his pants up over his waist. the mess he had made didn't bother him. He assumed that he would be alone for the rest of the day and so there was no one to be clean for.

He lay a flat hand against his soft stomach and thought about how he would speak to his fox the next time that he saw him.

He could be furious, as everyone would expect of him, or he could act differently and display the changes in his personality that he had adopted as he had sat in that chair of his.

He wasn't sure which would be more beneficial, which would be less humiliating should his feeling be not returned.

He didn't know and it scared him. It frightened him so badly that the hand he hadn't laid on his stomach shook in small increments as he moved it to rest upon his forehead. He was not used to being unsure of things and being unable to make a decision.

There was nothing that he could even pull up to grasp in order to make an assumption. There was no way that he could know what would be the best appropriate reaction to how ever the confrontation would go.

He supposed it didn't matter right now. He cleared his mind, tried to meditate. When the static in his brain calmed itself, he felt his body become heavier. He allowed his mind to drift off into his stress induced exhaustion and the lightness he still felt from his orgasm.

He kept his eyes closed and allowed himself to remember what it was like to sleep next to someone on a mission so that he did not feel as alone as he was.

**Dear Readers,**

**I know that I have conditioned you all to receiving updates from me within a few days of each other and I apologize that this one has been considered late. I promise you that I have not abandoned this story as many writers tend to do after a few chapters. I have come home from school for the holidays and so my days have been filled with housework and spending time with my family. This means that I have been preoccupied and am too exhausted to write. I am sorry for this. My fiancé does not agree with me on my Naruto-Sasuke love theory and so my fanfiction involvement has been kept a dirty secret. We live together and I spend every moment that I can with him, meaning that it's quite hard to get any creative writing done with him around. I promise that I will finish this story as quickly as I can and I do hope that you are all enjoying what has happened so far. This chapter is not the best, I am aware and I apologize for that too. I wanted to reveal some of the reasons that Naruto may or may not be acting the way that he is and some readers may not approve of the way it is shown through conversation. Sasuke's words may seem out of character for him, but remember, he has changed from his time in captivity and has decided to become a different person in order to prove something to Naruto and those around him. In January after the holidays have passed, I should go back to doing things in my regular fashion. I am also working on a new project that I hope you will all give a look as well. I will not post it until this one is finished in order to assure you that this one will in fact be completed. I love receiving reviews from you and I hope to see some more. I wish you all a happy holiday, no matter what it might be, and you will all let me know if anything particularly interesting happens to you **

**With all of my fanfiction love,**

**Nicky (Littlepurplestars)**


	15. Chapter 14 The Things That He Missed

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 14

The Things That He Missed

The sound of the door did not startle him. He was much to use to being unable to control the world around him to be surprised when something disturbed the air.

His eyes opened and snapped him out of the oblivion he had allowed himself to slip into earlier in the day. His breath returned to his body and expanded his lungs to their capacity.

He rubbed a middle and index finger over his right eye to push the sleep out. They burned as if he had recently used his eye trait. It felt strange because he had not. He supposed it could have been the over use of his sight since he had regained it.

He concentrated and felt the chakra hit him and sink deeper into his body. He should have known. Where she had been, the man would always follow. He was like a shadow that chased after her to whisper into her ear which direction she should take next.

He had probably come to scold Sasuke for the way he had spoken to her that morning. He had probably shown up to express his pride or his disappointment, Sasuke couldn't tell which quite yet.

He should have expected the man anyway. He did say that he would be back. He had said that Sasuke had grown and changed. Perhaps he was proud after all.

He looked down at his white fingers. This encounter would not be completely unbearable.

He sat up from where he lay on the couch and stretched his arms behind his back. He felt the man draw closer to him and he willed himself to slowly stand up. His knees shook from inactivity and his eyes begged for him to allow them to close again.

When he was standing, he remembered that his pants were dirty. If was far too late to change, the copy nin would smell the residue on his skin anyway with that tracker nose of his.

He sighed to himself and made his face into the straight passive mask that Kakashi was used to. He turned himself towards the direction of the other man and observed the serious face that his former teacher presented to him.

The instructor spoke first, breaking the silent tension that had formed.

"Was napping a part of the plans you had?" The man's mask moved slightly as he moved his lips. Sasuke vaguely wondered how the fabric would feel over his own mouth if he were to use such a mask himself.

He smirked that smirk he was so well known for and replied, "I wish that it was, it would mean things were so much easier." He glanced at the hands he had loosely grasped in front of him.

The silver haired man gestured to the couch as he helped himself and sat down in the chair that sat next to it. Sasuke took this queue and allowed himself to fall back down onto its cushions.

He watched the masked face bend down to look at an ankle he had perched upon a knee. His eyes closed in a small moment of thoughts.

"Sasuke, I wanted to have a talk with you."

"Isn't that obvious? Why else would you show up with such a serious demeanor in the middle of the day?" For a moment he was his old snappy and irritated self.

The head looked up to meet his face, a few gray strands softly swaying with the movement. The mouth couldn't be seen, but Sasuke knew that there was a small smile planted there for him.

"Well part of it is something that we've needed to talk about for a long time and I'd like the opportunity to pursue it while you're not currently trying to kill me or going on a murderous rampage for revenge for something new."

He laughed. He actually laughed. It was a small sound in the air and he could see the confusion in that one uncovered brown eye.

"Yeah, now would be a good time I guess. Although, I don't think I'll be doing anymore avenging for quite a while." He smiled as he moved his eyes away from the other man in order to look past his shoulder to the door. For the hundredth time that day, he imagined what it would be like if that fox of his came through it.

It would be awkward. It would be strange. It would be wonderful. Even though he was afraid of what the outcome of what their next interaction would be like, he still craved the company. Wanted the confrontation to be done with. Needed an answer to all the questions that had planted themselves on the surface of his mind.

But now was not the time to be contemplating what was to come. Right now he supposed it was best to focus on the man that sat near him, breathing the same air that he did.

"We should talk about what you missed while you were away. Sakura told me that she talked to you a little bit about it," a deep voice said.

He wanted to hear this. He would listen to the older man's words closely because he knew that they were important. He nodded his head. A piece of dark hair fell just beside his left eye.

With the gesture to continue, Kakashi allowed his thoughts to flow freely.

"I guess we should talk about what you're obviously interested in the most. It was true what she told you about him earlier. Naruto did act odd when it came to anything that involved you. The search became an obsession and each time that you told him no, it got deeper. She said that you wanted to know about it."

Again, Sasuke nodded his head. Of course he wanted to know. He didn't want to learn what awful effects he had had on the man that he was in love with, but he supposed that it was necessary. He needed to know so that he could find a way that he could possibly fix the damage.

"None of us believed that you would come back, only he did. He wouldn't give you up no matter how we begged him to stop running off after you. But you knew that already, didn't you? I didn't think that forcing you against your will was possible either, but I think he knew that too. I think that he felt his only option was to persuade you otherwise. He used to practice his arguments for you on Sai. It was actually quite funny, although none of them would have worked."

The man paused in his explanation and Sasuke could feel that eye of his upon him, observing his reaction. He stayed still, begging with his own dark eyes for more.

"I don't really know what was going on in his head, but I do know that all that mattered to him was that you were here. It's all he trained for. I don't even think becoming Hokage was that big of a deal to him anymore, maybe it still isn't, I don't know."

He couldn't help it. His body often moved on its own and so did his mouth.

"Why? Why did my presence matter so much?" He lifted one hand towards his head and combed his fingers through the strands of dark hair.

The silver haired man just stared at him. Sasuke could feel the anticipation swirl around inside his stomach like a storm boiling and getting ready to rage. He was sick.

"I'm not sure, to be honest. In the beginning when you were kids, I thought maybe it was because you were the only one that acknowledged him. I have to admit that back then, even I didn't take him as seriously as I should have. You were all he had, he told me once. No one else ever bothered to notice him when he wasn't pulling pranks." He watched as the man moved his shoulders around and then the rest of his body in a slight way to become more comfortable before he spoke again.

"You were mean to him more often than nice and I think he truly did hate you in the beginning. You always threw it in his face that you were better than him and I think it hurt him more than you intended it to. After watching you for a while, I figured you were so cruel because you wanted to challenge him so that he would become stronger. Well, I don't think he understood that up until a few years ago. But still, you were all he felt like he had, even in your coldness towards him."

He noticed the water that clung to the edge of Kakashi's eye and he knew that this wasn't just another one of his straight forward explanations. This one was important. This one would be detailed. This one was hard for the man to talk about.

Sasuke supposed that perhaps his former teacher had become quite fond of _him_ while he had been gone. He decided that it was a good thing. His best friend had never had anything like a parent and if Kakashi was willing to fill that deep void he had sensed in the blonde long ago, then maybe it wasn't so bad to be reminded of all of the scars he had left and why exactly they had formed.

"I noticed that that hatred he thought he had for you had dissolved after your fight with Haku. You were unconscious, you didn't see. He held onto you like if he let you go you'd disappear. He didn't want to let you go even to fight. When he and I talked about it, he told me that he couldn't believe that you would do something like that for him. He didn't think you cared enough about him. He said he needed to become stronger so that he could be the one that was able to protect you instead. He looked out for you every mission we went on after that, but you were too arrogant to notice."

He looked away from the man in the middle of the words and stared at the way the pale skin of his feet became moist from the accumulation of anxiety induced sweat. He was anxious. He was vulnerable. He watched as his feet stuck themselves lightly to the wood of the floor beneath him. He poised his mouth open, ready to speak his mind. He contemplated if it was a good idea or not. It was not, so he said the first thing that came to his thoughts after he had pushed the sentences down his throat.

"My body just moved on its own."

He heard Kakashi make a small sound. It could have been a little chuckle. It could have been a sigh. It didn't matter, he continued his speech to Sasuke anyway whether or not he was discontent.

"He cried that day too, by the way. He thought we were all asleep after everything had quieted down. Sakura heard him anyway. She said she thought he was 'being a cry baby because you showed him up' but she told me that that wasn't it. He was talking to himself, muttering about how he was pathetic, how he really was an idiot because he wasn't strong enough to help you."

He didn't want to hear about the things that had occurred behind his back while he was still a part of team seven. He didn't want to be reminded of all of the pain he had intentionally, but not quite, inflicted upon his rival before his departure and before he had needed him out of the way.

He couldn't help it this time. He shook his head silently and then allowed his mouth to open and that sense of rudeness to resurface as he raised his voice.

"Why do we need to talk about that mission? That's not important. I wanted to know what went on while I was gone, not what I was here for." He shifted on the couch. Pulled his legs underneath him on the cushion. Hugged himself, resting his hands on either of his shoulders.

"It is important. In order to understand why he wanted you in the village, you need to understand what you were to him first. If you don't want to listen, then I'm sorry but I don't think you will understand enough to know how to fix the situation, if it is fixable at all." The silver hair moved in its awkward shape as the man became excited in his answer.

He decided to allow the teacher to have his way. He had been right after all, it was important for Sasuke to know. Besides since the man had put it that way, it was suddenly crucial for him to know what he had been to the man that he was in love with.

He sighed in his self-embrace and nodded for the man to continue.

"As I was saying before you so kindly interrupted me, he was disappointed in himself because he wasn't able to save you. You were the main purpose for him to become stronger and more skilled. Well, she talked to him a few months after you had left and they weren't as sore as in the beginning, about what she had overheard. He told her that he had talked to Haku in the forest once before. Haku had asked him if he had a precious person because you get stronger if you have someone to protect, which I believe is true by the way. He told Sakura that he didn't have someone that he considered precious then, but he did now and that he was going to become good enough to take care of them. Apparently he didn't say anything more about it, but we assumed it was you because that's what the two of us are good at in times like that." This time it was a chuckle and Sasuke couldn't help but allow a faint smile to pull at his lips just from the sound of it.

A fluttering feeling welled up in his chest and he felt lightheaded.

"So you think that I was his precious person?" he asked the man. He needed to hear more on the subject. He wanted to know more about the feelings within his best friend that may or may not be there for Sasuke.

"My opinion doesn't really matter now because it wasn't something that you noticed at the time. Moving on, directly after you left his personality began to change. You never saw it, it only lasted a few weeks. After he had recovered from the wounds you gave him, which were very you should gruesome you should know, he became mad at everything. He was full of frustration and just _anger_. I think he was most angry with himself for not being able to keep you here and he took it out on everyone else. After that phase ended, he withdrew from us, all of us. He never left his apartment. Never went out to eat ramen. Iruka had to bring him groceries, when he'd let him in that is. He was becoming a normal brooding teenager, I guess. You'd think the world had ended for him or something. He was worse than Sakura, but then again Sakura didn't really believe that you could have left for good without her. That didn't last long though. He was still what you would describe as sad, but he tried to regain his normalcy after a while."

He moved his eyes to look off to that door once again, willing it to open. When it didn't, he let his subconscious speak for him. It didn't matter if Kakashi cared or not.

"I was sad too, at first. I had just left behind my home. I had just tried to kill my closest friend, my only friend, all over an eye trait that I ended up with anyway. My chest felt like it was splitting apart because I knew I loved him. I had just left everything I had ever known and ended up with a perverted genius that played with snakes. I did it to myself but I was devastated anyway." He let his hands fall from their perches and slide down his arms until they rested at his elbows.

"He knew that you were. He knew before you even left, he said. I thought that he was just telling himself that to ease the hurt, but I guess he was right. He knew a lot of things about you though, even things you didn't know yourself," Kakashi told him.

He smirked a little. He had heard that before.

"He said that to me in the beginning of this," he mumbled.

He figured either Kakashi had heard him and decided not to address it or it had been unintelligible, because he continued with the same hidden sarcasm within solemnness.

"He left with the intent of becoming better and stronger when he left to train with Jaryia. I don't know about anything related to you while he was gone those years, but when he came back, you were all his goals were about. Becoming Hokage wasn't even important at that point, although he tried to make it look like it was. I knew that it wasn't. When he got back he went on a mission and encountered Kabuto and Orochimaru. I don't know if you were told about it. The sanin started talking as if you belonged to him. Naruto wasn't having any of that, he was so angry. He said that he couldn't have you, that he wouldn't allow it."

He reflected. He remembered. He had been taunted with it after they had returned. Kabuto had laughed. Had told him that his boyfriend was looking for him. Had snickered into Sasuke's ear and said that he couldn't wait to show the blonde how much Sasuke had changed. Orochimaru had said that he wasn't to leave the hideout. Had said that he was to kill the Kyuubi on sight. Had said that Sasuke belonged to him and no one else. He had been mistaken. He had already been owned by someone else longer than he was even aware himself.

"He let the anger get the best of him and the team lost the fight because of it. It seemed like you were the cause of all of his most powerful emotions. He grew the most angry and sad because of you. Tsunande and I knew that it was only natural for him to crave you by his side, so we didn't chastise him. Later after you had encountered one another at one of the hideouts, he told me that he was so disappointed. He said that you were different, that you weren't _his_ Sasuke anymore. He was disappointed that you weren't the same and because he wasn't able to get you to come home. When he was telling me about everything that had happened, I could tell that he was confused. He didn't understand how cruel you could be by getting so physically close and then attempting to eliminate him. He was still naïve, I suppose."

He rubbed a calloused hand over his face and internally mourned that particular memory. He remembered it well. He had tried to forget it but it had still haunted him for years after.

When he had first caught sight of _him_, his body had become hyper with excitement. It was all he could do to stay still and wait for a reaction. When his name was said, he could only manage to return the call with the man's own name in reply. Then he had seen those arms opened wide in exclamation. He knew it was unintentional of the man. He had known it was a subconscious gesture, but his body wouldn't listen. It moved him. He had jumped from the high up stone and landed with his chest almost touching his rival's. He had placed a hand upon a strong shoulder and allowed himself to lean in close to an exposed ear. He just wanted to be near. Just wanted to have someone he recognized close to him. He wanted to be embraced, it had been a long time since he had felt arms wrap around him that didn't have the intention to harm him.

Then he had realized what he was really doing. He had noticed that it wasn't supposed to happen. He had things to accomplish, allowing his emotions to get the best of him was not an option. He could not be distracted. He could not let himself look like a fool. He could not go back on his decision, he was already far too deep into it.

To cover it up, he had whispered into that ear things that he wished he could take back. He had sensed the blankness in the whiskered man's face and he had allowed his breath to tickle that tan neck as he drew his katana from behind his back.

It was a memory he wanted to erase. Kakashi was right, it had been a cruel interaction. He let the man know how he had tried to save himself from embarrassment.

"It wasn't my intention to hurt him then. I can remember how the adrenaline rushed through me when I saw him. I wanted to go to him. I wanted him to make it all better. I didn't have time to think and before I knew it, I was standing in front of him. I made a mistake. I let myself become distracted from my task and I had to make it look as if I had planned it from the start. When I went to cut him, I did it slow, waiting for someone to block me." He hung his head and felt his former teacher's stare.

"When you get the chance, that might be a good thing to tell him. He was so broken apart about it."

He looked up and met that eye in a way to confirm that he was telling the truth.

"I will," he said.

The exposed eye closed and turned into that little U shape, "Good."

He closed his eyes, trying to find a light in this conversation and the things that he had learned so far. The emotions that he had made his best friend feel over the years were potent and overbearing. It meant a strong bond, a strong friendship. It could have meant love.

He opened his eyes and waited for Kakashi to continue.

"After you had captured the eight tales, we went all the way to Iron. He wanted to beg the Raikage for forgiveness in your name. He wanted your death warrant erased. He really did beg. He got on his knees and asked for your life to be spared. After we were alone and he had been denied, he admitted to me that he would have gone up against everyone just to keep you alive. I told him it wasn't really his place, but you know him. Fighting them would have meant starting a war between the villages and that would also mean going against his own friends for causing such trouble. He said he cared but they already hated him around here before and he'd rather live with that than lose you just because you had done something foolish."

He hadn't known. No one had told him. Madara had not allowed him to know. He had known that he was considered a criminal and that they wanted him dead, but he had not known that _he_ had stood up for him. That he had asked for Sasuke to be pardoned.

"I didn't know that he did that for me," he told the instructor.

"You don't know a lot of things. It would be different if you had ever had an actual conversation with him the times we found you." The tone was a bit bitter. It bit him inside his ears. He let it go. It was true.

"I wish that I had. I wish that I hadn't been so set on doing everything alone."

"He loves this village and these people. He would die for them and has almost done so many times, but he'd try to move the moon for you if you asked him to. He could never admit it, but I always thought that he would have left with you if you would have asked him. I don't just mean when you had first left or when you were kids, I mean all along. He would have left us if you had felt you had room for him." The man moved. Stretched his arms above his head to crack the bones in his shoulders. Rubbed his hand over the grey hair. Took in a deep breath.

"You're wrong. He wouldn't have left, he was trying too hard to do the right thing. It would have made him a rouge ninja to follow me. He wouldn't have done it."

He could feel the thoughts swirling around in a mass chaos within his brain. It was a fuzzy and static filled abstract painting and he couldn't determine what it was supposed to look like.

"Well, we all have our opinions and that's mine," Kakashi answered him and then continued, "You know everything else that happened afterward and it's too much to explain to you. I just wanted to show you what he was like after what you did to him. I wanted you to see the effects of your selfishness."

He _was_ selfish, even now he wanted things for himself. He wanted the man that he loved to be his. He wanted a new life. He wanted to be a different person. He wanted a lot of things.

"I want things to change. I don't want to hurt anyone anymore," he told the man in a whisper.

He felt cold. He needed something warm. He needed to feel taken care of and protected. He made the decision to finally ask the question he had buried away for years, out of sight and hopefully forgotten.

"Does he love me?" The words left his mouth with weight and he begged for an answer with his eyes.

He watched the older man look at him intently and Sasuke knew that he was contemplating whether or not to allow whatever the truth was to come out.

It created a nervous ball within his stomach and suddenly all of his fears embodied themselves within that single question and the answer was almost too hard to hear. He didn't want it to be a no and he didn't quite know what to do with it if it was a yes. He simply didn't know and that's what scared him the most.

"A question like that doesn't deserve and answer from me. It's not something you should get into the habit of asking people other than the only one that can give it. You're obviously smart, Sasuke. The answer can't be all that hard to assume if you need one right here and now, although I do recommend waiting and asking the source first hand."

He was smart and he knew it. He would contemplate the answer at a later time. he took a deep breath and decided to begin his new attitude with this man. He let his eyes stare boldly and seriously at the man's visible eye to show that his words were sincere.

"Thank you, Kakashi-Sensei. Thank you for this."

No words were returned, only a small nod that he observed from the other man. after several long seconds of quiet, he looked away and sighed. He decided that perhaps keeping everything a secret was not necessary.

"I missed you, you know. I missed the way you treated me," he said.

Kakashi laughed something small and he took it to mean that the man had approved of this.

"I missed you too, although it was hard to after a while of that ego and insanity induced personality of yours." The man smiled from underneath that mask at him and he couldn't help his mouth from returning the favor.

After a while the instructor added in a humorous tone of voice, "Next time I come over I'll be sure that I let you know beforehand so that I don't interrupt your afternoon activities."

He watched the man's nose move in a wrinkling motion and he suddenly remembered that his former teacher had probably been able to smell the residue he had left on his skin earlier and he couldn't stop his face from beginning to burn. He did not blush often and had seldom become embarrassed, but he could not help himself this time.

He didn't know how to respond to something like that and decided to tell the man that that might be a good idea and left it at that.

When the man had decided to leave, he was almost sad to watch that strong and firm back walk away from him and out of his apartment door. He felt relieved though. He felt that he could have the opportunity to fall apart now, should he feel the need to.

He washed his body beneath the spray of water from the shower and rubbed the soap hard into his skin, hoping that what he had done that afternoon would be hidden from the world.

It had felt good, however, and he couldn't help but wish once more that it had been his best friend instead of himself that had caused his release.

He felt refreshed and much more comfortable with a new set of clothes on over his skin. He decided to try out the kimono that he had found in the wardrobe the first night that he had spent in his new chance of a life.

It slid over his skin just the way he had imagined that it would and he found that he liked it more than he probably should have. He wanted to rub it against himself but refrained from doing so. He still had some of his pride left after all. It was not a garment he would normally chose for himself, but he decided that it suited him and that perhaps it would bring him luck.

He wondered what his fox would think of him in such a garment and he thought about what it would be like for his love interest to appear behind him as he looked at himself in the mirror. He wondered what a kiss to the back of his neck would feel like.

He let out a sigh and decided that he needed fresh air. He walked to a window that he knew there would be a guard close outside and opened it.

He let the top half of his body hang outside to better catch a glimpse of the masked ninja. The wood was slightly splintered underneath his hands as held onto the frame to study himself.

"I want to go outside," he stated to the person.

When he was granted permission, he heard a guard move from their position to stand outside of his front door. He pulled himself back into the room and made his way to it.

The guard moved out of his way and perched himself on a nearby tree branch as he walked onto the wooden porch that he shared with the neighbors that lived on either side of him and explained that he just wanted to stand in front of his door and look down from the railing at the village.

The air was crisp. Not cold and not warm either. It circulated through him and cooled his too hot nerves.

He watched the villagers pass him by from the second floor where he stood, bent over the wood rail. He observed as some stopped briefly to look up at him and catch a glance at the last Uchiha.

He smiled at them in attempt to show them that he was determined to be harmless.

**Dear Readers,**

**Thank you all so very much for your support and I really do love your opinions and the reviews that you leave me. Knowing that you are enjoying my writing not only boosts my low self-esteem, but inspires me to keep producing read-worthy entertainment. Again, this chapter is not as wonderful as it could be and it does contain some cliché material but I do promise I will try to make it better. This chapter and the last have been what the anime stream of the storyline would call "fillers". They are annoying but I believe necessary as well, in order to cover all of the loose ends and threads of possibility that I can see. Also, I would like to remind you all that this is supposed to be a romance. It will not end up being fluffy or sickening sweet and it will not turn out to be like a romance novel that middle aged women enjoy reading so much, but it will be romantic. As a side note, the simple silk kimono is not an attempt to make Sasuke seem feminine, because we all know that he can be in some ways but not in others, but is a way of showing his fox the vulnerability that he possesses and the capacity of allowing his pride to slip to the side in small increments at a time. This garment is not a center of interest or importance, I just wanted you all to know that it is in no way meant to make Sasuke look weaker than he already is. Besides, his apartment was already set up for him before he was released. It had to get in his wardrobe somehow didn't it? I hope you all enjoy my vision and I hope that you all had a happy and safe holiday, no matter what it may have been. I will update as soon as I can. Here's to another year of luck and successes to everyone.**

**Happy reading,**

**Nicky (Littlepurplestars)**


	16. Chapter 15 Blue Eyes and A Confrontation

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 15

Blue Eyes and a Confrontation

The air around him was filled with the sounds of the people that walked along the street as he allowed himself to contemplate the information that Kakashi had given him and all of the thoughts that came with it.

_He_ had searched for Sasuke with a temporary insanity intact. He had disobeyed orders and looked for Sasuke instead. Sasuke had created a deep cut within him that the man didn't even try to heal in order to make his own life much easier or to take steps in forgetting Sasuke altogether.

He shook his head lightly and sighed to himself. He reminded himself that there had been a reason _he_ had stopped chasing after Sasuke. There had been a thought within that head that had eventually told the man to stop looking.

He decided to move on. He had thought many times about what that particular reason could be and he always ended up coming to the same thing. _He _didn't want him anymore. Whether he had wanted Sasuke in the village for friendship, for Sakura's promise, or for love, Sasuke didn't know. What he thought he knew was that his best friend didn't want him at all because the searches had stopped and the small glimpses of each other every now and again in the forest hadn't occurred in quite a while.

He lifted his hand up to his face from where he held it as he leaned over the railing and brushed a piece of hair behind his ear. It had gotten long within his captivity and although they had cut it, it was still not the length he was used to.

He marveled once again at the ways he had changed. Yes, he decided, he was very different. He no longer had anything to seek revenge for. His thought processes had mellowed down and simmered so that he did not view the world in a hate filled gaze as he once had. He did not wish to gain anything.

No, that was a lie. He wished to gain so much from this second chance. He wanted to obtain a normal life. He had done so many marvelous and cruel things in his short life already that he was ready to settle down. He was ready to live like the rest of the ninjas from this village. He begged the stars silently at night to allow him to gain forgiveness from those whom he had harmed in more ways than one.

He had damaged them in non-fixable ways and he wished peace for them. He hoped that one day they could understand why he had done what he had to them. Most of all, he wanted to gain the love and trust of his greatest rival and his greatest friend.

He knew that these things would be hard to achieve and were perhaps not fair for him to own. Perhaps he was not worthy of them. He supposed it didn't matter, it didn't stop him from wanting them anyway.

He moved his fingers along the wood railing that he leaned all of his upper body weight against and watched as a piece arched up at his touch. A splinter waiting to infect him. He thought about how if it were to pierce his skin, it would become a breeding ground for bacteria in a matter of seconds.

He sighed again. He truly did not know what to do when faced with all of the issues that haunted him. He decided that he would give into his change in personality and improvise.

Improvising was a trait that that dobe did best, he reminded himself and he smiled just a little at the thought of that wide grin. Those blue eyes. That way of finding his way out of anything.

Then he frowned. He hadn't had a chance to see any of those characteristics in the man in years. He suddenly hated that porcelain fox mask with all the passion that he could muster. How dare it keep that face from him. How could it be so cruel?

He stilled. Sucked in a breath. Shivered with the crispness in the air. That overwhelming familiar chakra covered him and he didn't know whether it was best to feel relieved and comforted or give into the anxiety that had been brewing within him.

He decided on the bright side. He closed his eyes and took in the warmth from that chakra as it came closer.

He noticed that that fox mask was still in place as the man came to stand next to him. Soon he too, was leaning over the railing beside Sasuke.

A hard shoulder brushed briefly against his and Sasuke felt the tingles from that small amount of contact. They remained on the surface of his skin underneath the fabric of his clothing and reminded him that his heart had a purpose to beat.

And beat it did. It rang in his ears like a war drum and he could swear that it was audible even outside of his body.

He watched as the man turned that mask towards him and he knew that those eyes behind it were watching him.

"What were you thinking about?" the voice from underneath it sounded.

He didn't know how to answer. There had been so much that he had thought over and he wasn't sure which to reveal.

"Uh, I was thinking about whether or not I would fit in here with everyone and be normal." The words did not sound like his own. He had never worried about such a thing before and didn't think he would ever.

"You were not meant for a normal life, Sasuke. Haven't you proved that already?" The fox asked him in a rhetorical way.

"But what if that's what I want, to be normal for a while?" he asked.

He watched the fox become less tense and relax in his presence. The voice also become slightly softer and Sasuke found himself barely able to refrain from reaching out to touch the man.

"Sas', you can achieve anything you try to, you've already shown me that."

He didn't know what more to say and so he decided to look out to the roofs of the buildings that stood in the small distance in front of his own apartment building.

The fox must have sensed the uneasiness in him and so he softly touched a pale bent elbow to gesture that they were going to move.

He turned around at the touch and decided that he would follow this man anywhere from now on, no matter what outcome came about. He was in love, he confirmed within his head.

He was led to his apartment door and inside. He could feel the heat emanating from the other man and he could not help the warmth that spread across his own pale cheeks.

Once inside he went to the kitchen and leaned against a counter, his lower back pressed into the sharp edge and his arms crossed in front of him in attempt to protect his heart as he looked over at his rival. He watched the man take a seat at the table, looking at Sasuke from behind that animal shaped barrier.

It startled him almost, the way that voice again sounded from underneath its cover.

"I'm sorry. I apologize. I wanted to tell you who I was from the moment I first saw you but it was forbidden. It's the rules, not just because it was you and me. We are nameless behind these masks and she gave me a fair warning about it." Sasuke watched the man shift uncomfortably in his chair. He fought the urge to walk over and comfort him somehow. A touch on that broad shoulder. A movement to sit beside him. A kiss to the exposed neck underneath where the mask set on that face.

Instead he remained still in his position and waited for more.

"I meant to tell you after she had released you. I even got permission from her, but I wasn't ready yet. I knew that if I told you things would be different. I enjoyed just being near you too much. I liked it that for the first time in our lives you actually listened to me, obeyed me, and trusted me. I liked watching you, it let me get to know you in ways you hadn't allowed me to before. I wasn't ready to give that up. And honestly, you're so damn clever. I really thought you would have figured it out before. I thought you would have known who I was from the moment I walked into the room with you."

Sasuke frowned. The fox was right and he knew it. He should have known sooner. It was a failure he had to live with, he supposed. It was another thing that he had to get used to, not achieving excellence.

He flinched a little as the man rose from his seat and began moving closer to him. He wasn't afraid but he didn't trust himself not to be angry. Not to be pained. Not to reach out and wrap his arms around the fox.

"I'm sorry about what you had to go through when we held you. And I'm most sorry about what I did to you. It was wrong and I know that I was selfish, I just couldn't help myself. I was so angry with you. I was so frustrated and I was so afraid to lose you. I took it all out on you in the most inappropriate way and I know that I shouldn't have done that. I knew that you'd still be able to kill me, with only a blindfold and a rope binding you, and when you didn't after the first time I couldn't stop myself from doing it again. It made me feel empowered. I am so sorry."

The man had moved closer to him so that he was almost touching Sasuke. The chakra emanating from him made Sasuke understand the truth behind the words.

He wasn't angry that the fox had taken him, he was in love after all. He was angry because it was out of the desire to feel power over Sasuke, the need to use him as a tool. His earlier suspicions of why it had been done to him were confirmed and he didn't know how to deal with it. He scolded himself within his head about having such optimistic thoughts. He decided that he would never be alright with someone trying to dominate him, that much within him had not changed.

He asked himself why this man would ever want him in the way he had hoped for. He wondered how his best friend could ever be truly attracted to someone that had tried to kill him. He wished there was a possible way for this fox to love someone that had allowed themselves to be taken to become engulfed by their rage and taken over beyond recognition.

He watched as ungloved tan fingers reached up to the edge of that mask and he knew that it would soon be removed. He quickly turned away, his hip now being the only part of him touching the counter and his eyes and body aimed to look out of a window.

He wasn't ready to see that face. For so long it was one that he felt that he could not live without and he supposed that it still was, but for now he was not ready to see the eyes that he knew did not love him, as he had tricked himself into believing possibly could.

He heard the porcelain slide from the face and his heart sped up.

The professionalism fell from the fox's voice as he tried to get his attention and the tone became much softer, almost a whisper.

"I'm so sorry, Sasuke," he said.

He couldn't help himself. At the sound of that soft familiarity, his emotions were no longer able to stay hidden. He decided to ask the question that he had already assumed the answer to. He needed to be proven wrong.

"Why did you stop chasing me? If you wanted to be near me, how could you stop wanting me at all?" His voice shook and he was embarrassed about his nervousness being displayed so plainly. He kept his gaze and body position away from the other man.

"I never stopped wanting you, never! I just couldn't anymore. I couldn't run after you every chance I got." The voice was now an excited one, loud and completely recognizable. That was the voice that was most familiar to Sasuke. That was the voice that had called after him as he had run through the trees.

"You're lying. If you wanted me, you wouldn't have given up. You never give up. You never go back on your word and you did. You didn't want me." His tone was harsh and he could feel the man become stiff and guarded as he stood behind him.

"That's not true. I never gave up. I just couldn't chase after you anymore. I was so fucking obsessed with you! It was driving me crazy. You were all I could think about and it was self-destructive. You have no idea what it felt like to have you tell me no every damn time, to have you remind me that you hated me. You'll never understand how_ jealous_ I was to see you with your new team, Taka was it? I was so fucking jealous that you were more comfortable with them than with me. You actually treated them like real people. It hurt so badly every time I watched them being _allowed_ to follow after you. I just had to stop." The voice started out loud and ended in a softer sound.

He knew that the fox was not lying. He knew that what had been said was the truth by the way the chakra roared and swirled around the man and had bled over to cover Sasuke. He knew that it was all real from the words that he had been told by his two other former teammates.

"What am I to you? Why did you want me back here so much?" His tone was urgent. He needed to know.

The man moved closer to him until he felt a hard chest press into his back and a chin come to rest on the side of his neck. He felt warm breath targeted at his ear.

"Did you mean everything that you said about me?" It came out like a whisper with a touch of mischief and he found that he didn't mind.

"Yes," he breathed. He didn't turn his head to look back at the man. He wasn't ready to crumple.

"You are my friend. You were my best friend. My rival. You were the first family that I've ever had. I couldn't live without you." The words made the dizziness in his head become apparent. He said nothing.

"I couldn't live without you," the voice in his ear said again.

His body shook in such small movements that no one wouldn't have noticed if they hadn't been touching him. A wide hand did notice though and it rose to lie upon his upper arm. It moved slowly in attempt to comfort him as it caused the smooth silk fabric of the kimono to caress his skin.

Again, he couldn't help himself. He melted into the touch and leaned into that warm chest slightly. His shoulder dropped to express his comfort.

The chin moved to land on the space between his neck and shoulder. The bone hurt in a small way and he found that he wanted more.

"_Was_ your best friend?" he asked the fox. The breath almost escaped his body entirely along with the words.

"I'd be lying if I told you that you still were. You haven't acted like a best friend, or even just a friend for such a long time, Teme."

The answer was valid. It was true. He had avoided the man at all costs. Had almost destroyed him. Had threatened him. Had scorned him. He moved on.

"Am I nothing else to you?"

Teeth lightly grazed his shoulder over the fabric. They were rough, but did not cut him or leave a wound.

"I knew that the kimono would suit you." The fox avoided his question. Sasuke found it odd that the subject was changed to something as insignificant as what he was wearing.

The man said nothing else, just moved his mouth to Sasuke's exposed neck. The teeth nibbled him. Again, they did not leave a mark. The threat of them doing so almost caused him to beg for it to happen. To feel those teeth sink in to his vulnerability. To mark him as owned.

Finally he was willing to lose all control of himself. He turned in the man's presence and took his first look at the fox's face.

This time he really couldn't breathe. He took in the appearance and watched every movement. The face was the same as he had remembered. As he had seen in his dreams. As he had always -wanted it to be.

The yellow hair, matted down from the scarf and damp from the mask. A thin layer of sweat lying over the skin. Those deep blue eyes that seemed to pierce him like a blade. Lined scars on either cheek that gave away what force was held within. That mouth that now had the power to break him apart.

This was Naruto. Yes, finally he could say the name within his mind without falling apart. This was Naruto in front of him. This was the Naruto from his childhood. The one that had chased him all over this side of the world. The one that had competed with him, had trained with him, had grown with him. The one that had tried to save him from himself and the one that was capable of bringing him to his knees should he ask it of Sasuke.

This was Naruto and so he announced it, "Naruto."

He watched the blue eyes land on his lips and he knew what was coming. He closed his eyes and waited for the contact.

It didn't come. His mouth was left alone and instead his jaw line was graced with a soft tender kiss.

His eyelids felt heavy and burdened. He didn't want to open them. He feared that everything might have possibly been a dream. He feared that perhaps he had died already among the other broken bodies he had slain.

He opened them anyway. Those eyes were on his then and he found himself scanning them for any hint as to what was to happen next.

His body did often move on its own, he reminded himself. He would use it as an excuse should the time come that one was needed.

He leaned into the man and found that mouth with his. The heat from the other's lips made his head swim more than a bit and he had to reach out, placing a pale hand on a shoulder to prevent himself from falling over.

The contact was warm and everything he had been hoping for. It was the same lips as he had felt before in his captivity, but it was also so much more different and so much better because he knew exactly whom that delicious mouth belonged to. He pressed his lips hard into the other man's mouth and allowed his eyes to close.

He moved his lips, begging silently for a reaction from the fox and when he finally got one, he sighed deeply into the kiss.

The man seemed to be deep in thought as his mouth was connected to Sasuke's and took the kiss slow and almost painfully.

Sasuke decided that this would not do. Should this be the last kiss that he would ever truly share with Naruto, he would make the man remember it.

He pushed his body in tighter against that chest and placed a slender hand in that mess of yellow hair and entwined his fingers within the strands. He pressed his lips harder and moved in an attempt to make the man feel all of the emotions that he invoked within Sasuke all at once.

These actions seemed to pull the man back to the present and he felt those hands come to land on his hip and the back of his neck. The passion was returned and he could feel a soft swipe of a tongue.

He obliged. The man tasted the inside of his mouth as best as he could and he lost himself in the movement of that tongue as it rubbed against his own.

He moaned at this. Uchiha's most likely did not make such sounds all that often and perhaps he should have controlled himself better, but for now, none of that mattered. He would give Naruto all of the sounds that his mouth had to offer in a demonstration of his devotion. He would show this fox how much he enjoyed his company.

At that sound from his mouth the man followed with his own and Sasuke could feel a tingling ache begin to form in the tips of his fingers. He boldly moved his hand from the shoulder and brought nervous fingers up to caress that face.

The skin he found there was soft all but the thin lines of raised skin where the scars were etched. He pulled back from the kiss to watch the path that his fingers made as they memorized and mapped out where they travelled.

As he removed his lips, the fox followed them slightly with his own as if to display that he was not ready for the contact to end so soon.

The man waited for Sasuke to end his inspection and then caught his eyes. He allowed his ink colored eyes to regard the blue ones before him for a few seconds and then sighed in comfort as a forehead met his own with a hard force, a painful gesture that reminded him of the childhood that he had spent with this man once upon a time.

Both tan hands lifted to his face to hold him into place and soft but hot breath fell out of that mouth and covered his own.

"You could never break the bond that we had Sasuke. Never," Naruto told him.

He swallowed the saliva that had formed in his mouth and sighed again before speaking.

"No I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. I only did so because I had to, you know that right?"

"But you didn't have to, don't you see? I would have helped you. We could have gotten stronger together here and I could have helped you. Hell, if you would have asked me to I would have given everything up just to go with you," said the fox.

The words sunk in. Kakashi had told him the same thing, but it did not truly hit him until he heard it from the source. It went through him like an unbearable heat and he couldn't hold back the pain that had welled up his throat from his chest.

He cried. Such a pathetic thing to do, he thought. Such a display of weakness. Such a pity for an Uchiha to do so.

He cried, warm salt water formed in the corner of his eyes and left chilled trails as they became too heavy and finally fell. A small but harsh sob left his mouth and he wished that he could take it back.

He had been wrong, he had known that all along, but this was different. The man that his whole heart belonged to had told him so in his own way.

He lifted a hand to his face and wiped away his own tears. He felt like giving up, and so he did.

He pulled away from the hands on his face and sunk to the kitchen floor, his back against the counter's cabinets and his knees pulled tight against his chest. Naruto stood where he had fallen away from him and stared at him with wet eyes.

The man felt pity for him, he decided. The man felt sorry for him and that was why he had shown Sasuke such affection. This man did not love him, he was just trying to lessen the pain.

He hid his face in his knees and cried harder. He decided that his pride no longer mattered and his reputation was meaningless. He allowed all of the emotions that he had desperately tried to hold in, to wash over him and exit his body in waves. His sobs were loud and very unlike him, but he found that he didn't care.

He felt his body shake and tremble with the outburst of emotion. A coldness settled over him and he willed it to go away.

That heat from before spread across his skin and began to warm him as he felt Naruto kneel in front of him and place his arms around his shoulders. Hands with wide splayed fingers rested on his upper back and a chest covered his knees as he was pulled closer into the body of the fox.

Still he cried for the absence of the love that at one point he was sure existed. He cried for the mistakes he had made, the unbreakable decisions. He cried for the pain he had caused, and he cried for the ache in his chest.

A chin rested on the top of his bowed head and the mouth whispered in attempt to comfort him.

"Shh, Sasuke. It'll be alright, Teme, I promise. Why are you crying?"

His sobs stopped in response and he gathered the words in his mouth.

"I've caused so many disasters that I can't fix and I don't know how I was ever able to fool myself into believing that I deserved some sort of redemption. I'm so dumb for thinking that you could ever love me after all of the things that I've done to you. I was mistaken and now I don't know what to do," he admitted.

The hands on his back began to move up and down over the fabric.

"You're not dumb, not like me."

At the words, he raised his head and with pained look at Naruto. The words had hurt him because he had called this man an idiot, a baka, many times over the years but he hadn't truly meant it. To hear that his rival believed it was true, was too much.

He allowed one hand to raise from his knee and reach out to touch that face again with his fingertips. He swallowed the emotions in his throat and asked for a reason.

"Why would you say that of yourself?"

He watched as the air around them was inhaled into Naruto's lungs and exhaled slowly with a deflating sound. A pair of fingers landed over his to hold his hand into place on the scarred cheeks.

"Sasuke, I never really could keep up with you but it didn't stop me from trying. Like an idiot, I chased you when you told me not to. I wanted you here with me even though you told me that you didn't want anything to do with me. I'm so stupid because I wouldn't quit. But that's not the point. The point is that it's going to be ok. It's true that there are many unfixable things, but that doesn't mean you can't start over and try again. You're my friend and I know you well enough to know that it'll be alright."

He didn't expect the contact, that mouth landing on his own, that hand on his jawline. He allowed his lips to be overtaken and could not suppress the heat that filled his body from the inside out. His skin burned and his breath felt heavy as he exhaled into the mouth over his.

For several seconds his mouth was again explored. Those hands moved to hold him still, one entwined in his dark hair, another loosely and carefully around his neck as the kiss was deepened. Those hands held him as if he was fragile, breakable.

Before all of this, he would have never admitted to feeling any sense of fragility. He would never had admitted to having such a flaw as this, but for now he supposed that he truly was. He felt that his future and the possible happiness within it depended on the man that held him now. He was malleable and knew that the man's actions and words could shape his new existence in the village.

Yes, he decided. Yes, he was fragile in this moment. He was vulnerable with that hand around his neck and his emotions laid bare and apparent.

With this knowledge and understanding of his own current state, he moved his head a few inches back in order to break the contact of their lips. He then moved closer again to allow the tip of his nose to brush softly against the other's.

"I love you," he said and then, "I love you, Naruto. If you think I can start over, then let me start with you. Let me prove to you that I can be different."

"I don't want you to be different. I want you to be you, it's your previous actions that I want to cease from happening again," the fox told him with a harder tone than he had used before.

"I told you and anyone else that would listen to me, that I have no intention of acting the way that I had. I want to live here and I want to be near you."

Once again he was pulled into the body in front of him, but with enough force to pull his chest away from his knees and reshape him. He allowed all of his weight to be placed upon his knees. He was forced to kneel on the floor, his kimono pushed further up his legs and exposing the pale skin of his legs. His chest was pressed tight into the fox's and his head was positioned to rest in on a shoulder.

The movement in position took only seconds and he could not help but conclude from the brashness and force that the man needed to feel physically closer to him.

"Be near me then," a voice whispered before a tongue decided to trace the shell of his ear. His earlobe tingled where the muscle had stopped its path before being drawn back into that warm mouth. He felt the need build in his stomach and decided that it would be a waste of time to hold back the rising desire and arousal he felt.

His breath became quicker and he allowed Naruto to take control. He allowed the man to pull him into his lap, Sasuke's legs on either side of his waist as the fox sat flat on the floor.

He allowed his hair to be tugged, forcing his neck to arch backwards and a hot mouth to smooth over an artery on his neck that beat in a rhythm as it pumped and rushed blood throughout his body.

The teeth that he had anticipated earlier pressed into the tender skin underneath them, fully capable of puncturing. But they wouldn't dare. They wouldn't dare bite into him, their owner too afraid to lose Sasuke again.

"Tell me you won't leave me again," the fox whispered against his skin. This was a habit that Sasuke quickly came to understand that his best friend possessed and he found that he had begun to crave it.

His hair was released and those lips left his neck, allowing him to move his head in order to look at the man.

"I told you before," he said.

This was not enough for the man and again he pressed Sasuke with a louder and much more stern voice, "Tell me you won't leave again, Teme. Please."

"Usuratonkachi," he allowed the word to fall from his mouth, a smirk forming. He watched the surprise in his rival's face and felt a sense of pride that he could still make the man lose a bit of his control. After taking in the expression, to satisfy the man he added, "I won't leave you. If you leave here I will go with you, even if you forbid me to. If you stay, I'll stay. I won't leave you behind again."

His eyes observed the way Naruto's mouth fell slightly open and a tint had come to adorn his cheeks. He had made the fox happy, he guessed.

"I know you're sorry, but say it to me. I need to hear it." The words came out somewhat harsh and it surprised Sasuke more than he would have liked to admit.

He gave into the request, "I apologize, Naruto. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry for leaving without you. I'm sorry I kept running. I'm sorry for all of the things I had said to you, and I'm sorry for hurting you emotionally and physically. I was trying to accomplish my goal and I couldn't see any other way to go about it. With all of me, I am sorry."

He felt better. He thought perhaps this admission would degrade him, make him feel worse than he already did, but it allowed the heaviness he had been carrying around for years to disperse and exit him.

He sighed, the air rushing out of his lungs and leaving his mouth. He tilted his head in a way to challenge what was to come next and a few strands of dark hair fell across his eyes.

They were pushed back into place behind his left ear by tan fingers. A thumb stayed longer on the side of his face longer than necessary and he melted into the touch, putting weight on the appendage.

"You're so beautiful," he heard the barely audible whisper come from Naruto's mouth. He smirked again and studied those blue eyes he had been waiting so long to catch a glimpse of before moving further forward and pressing his forehead hard into the other man's.

**Dear Readers,**

**I sincerely appreciate your patience and I look forward to reading what you think about this chapter. I understand that perhaps it may not be quite what you were looking for, but I felt that the story needed more romance than it had previously. I left out many descriptions about what Sasuke may be feeling at the moment in order to express the quickness of the interactions. When one experiences a larger than normal amount of adrenaline within their veins, they are not often aware of every single emotion that they may be feeling. They are rather more focused on the actions of their body and of the people around them. I also would like to mention that Naruto is somewhat tired of holding all of his own emotions away, but he is still feeling hesitant and I understand that he has not revealed much of anything. Do not fear, this is not the end. **

**With all of my fanfiction love,**

**Nicky (Littlepurplestars)**


	17. Chapter 16 Finally

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 16

Finally

"You're beautiful," Naruto told him once more as Sasuke let his mouth land over the man's again.

It was his turn to explore the other's mouth and so he did with haste. He slipped his tongue into every space that it could fit and he reflected upon the taste.

It was the same taste as the very first kiss they had shared in a class room as children. It was a taste he had tried to forget about over the years and was successful in storing it away out of plain view, but ultimately failing at forgetting it all together.

He closed his eyes and allowed his tongue to gently press into the fox's as he tried to entice the man to do something other than sit still beneath him as he still straddled that waist he had missed.

The kiss was returned as all the others from that day had been and he found that his body had begun to overheat with an unbearable urge to press his body into the other's. It rushed through him like a wave and caused an electric static to pass through his body.

He gave up and pushed his waist down with force, causing the curve of his behind to press into Naruto's groin and for his own somewhat hard arousal to faintly brush against the hard stomach in front of him.

This action dragged a moan to pass over the fox's lips and for those blue eyes to close, as if trying to memorize the moment.

The sound left the inside of his stomach itchy and he decided that he needed more of it to relieve the pleasurable irritation. He pressed again, this time purposely pushing his now fully hard member into the man.

He let out his own sound at the friction that he would surely call glorious. He supposed that the way his mouth opened just a fraction and the way his need was shown in his voice must have been too much for Naruto to handle. His hair was pulled again, this time hard enough to cause him to become dizzy and a hand made its way into the top of the kimono to caress his sturdy collarbone.

He allowed himself to be overtaken and anticipated what would come next as Naruto began to kiss all of the skin of his face and neck that he could reach.

The kisses were hot and full of an ache that he couldn't quite comprehend. He passed it off as a harsh insatiable need and felt pleasure at the thought of the man he loved needing him like oxygen.

As the mouth pressed into his skin harder with each kiss his body was bent further backwards, almost pushing him into the kitchen floor. He held himself up with two outstretched arms behind him.

Soon the mouth too, found its way into the small opening of the kimono where the hand had made a path. His skin tingled from the unexpected contact and he began the subconscious action of moving his waist back and forth to cause more friction on his erection.

It both pleased and excited him to feel the man's own member was as hard as his own. He smirked his smirk and allowed his mouth to fall open to extract an answer he had been dying for all along.

"Do you want me?"

The man stopped his kisses and moved his hands to his back in order to hold him up and place less strain on his arms.

He watched the blue eyes study him with a glint of pain and the excitement he felt died a small amount as he prepared himself for the reply that he was afraid of.

"Sasuke, I told you before that I never stopped wanting you. I have always wanted you," he watched Naruto's mouth say as he pushed his own bangs away from his eyes in an attempt to focus better.

It wasn't quite what he was looking for and so he asked again, "How? How do you want me?"

He observed the way that Naruto seemed to be thinking the question over in his mind and deciding on the best answer to give. His heart beat loud in his head with the anticipation.

"In every way. I want you in every way that I can have you," he said before placing an opened hand across his neck, his thumb rubbing the skin in small circles.

He thought about the first time that Naruto had taken him. He waited for the pressure to be added. For the air to be squeezed out of his throat. It did not come and so he relaxed into the touch. He supposed that perhaps it was just a gesture of ownership.

The answer was still not what he wanted to hear. It was still not enough for him but he supposed that perhaps his rival was not ready to tell him about his own feelings. Perhaps being patient would give him the results he desired.

He already belonged to Naruto. He had belonged to his best friend since the beginning, he knew that now. It was no use trying to deny it anymore, as he had for the years he had spent training to achieve his goals.

"You can have me. I have always been yours, Naruto. Don't you understand that?" His body shook slightly with the nervousness that had settled in his stomach, twisting his insides and causing it to constrict tightly.

The emotions displayed on the fox's face threatened to break him. At first the man showed a look of disbelief, than a sense of achievement, and then lastly a look of deep troubled hurt. He said nothing to Sasuke, just pulled him closer. He watched water gather into the corners of those blue eyes before he pressed his face into the crook of that tan neck, the yellow hair tangling with his own.

Several minutes passed in this way as the silence was punctured by the soft sobs of the Anbu guard as he held onto Sasuke as if the world would end for him if he were to let go.

When the man finally spoke, his voice was ragged and deep as he sniffled, "That's all I ever wanted. My whole life, that's all I ever wanted. Just you. I just wanted you beside me. I just wanted to see you smile, and I always thought it would be even better if you were able to smile just for me. I spent so much time trying to catch up to you and you tell me now that I had you anyway? How could you do that to me? How could you make me think for years that you wanted nothing to do with me? If you belonged to me all this time, then you should have been here. I know that you had goals to complete and I understand that you thought that you had to do it alone, but if you were mine, you could have at least let me know. Maybe it would have been different. Maybe I wouldn't have tried so hard to prove to myself that I could make you see what was in my heart."

The words cut him and he didn't know how to stop the internal bleeding or how to respond.

The man pulled away from him in order to catch his inky gaze with the color of the sky in his eyes. The emotions he found there must have been satisfactory. Once again he pulled him closer into his hard chest, enough to push the breath out of Sasuke's lungs and kissed the top of his head, black hair brushing against his lips.

"You're such a bastard," Naruto whispered, the hint of a smile in his voice.

He smiled against the chest at the sound and forced his head up to look at the other man. A question of what was to come next was asked in his face.

No answers came and instead his rival resumed the affection they had earlier shown to one another with a kiss.

He kissed the man with all the passion that he could and tried to show him that he would be everything that he wasn't, from now on.

The hand was again in the opening of his kimono and played against his collarbone. Soon they progressed downwards and a sensitive nipple was brushed against with a fingertip before it descended further still.

It was not enough. He needed those tan hands all over his body. He reached down and untied the sash that held the kimono closed on his body.

The blue eyes hungrily scanned the exposed pale skin and he found himself pleased with their reaction. He took both strong hands in his own and placed them on his body. A hand on his soft stomach, another on his chest.

They roamed the canvas underneath them and his body regained that sense of heat it had been fighting before.

He moved his waist as he had before and found that the man's body had returned to the state it had been only moments before. The hardness pressed into him. Caused the kimono to slide against his skin. Caused his heart to speed up. Caused him to become hard also.

He found that he couldn't help himself. He placed his hands underneath the shirt of the Anbu uniform and slid them upwards to feel the fox's muscles beneath his palms.

The man shuddered and drew a quick breath between his lips.

"Sasuke," the man whispered before leaning forward and capturing within his mouth the pink stub that had been lightly caressed earlier. His breath quickened and he let out a soft sigh.

He decided that he was brave enough to pull the shirt over the man's head to gain better access to that skin that dared to scorch him where he touched.

He kissed all the skin that he could find, just as the man had done to him and it gained him another moan from that delicious mouth that tasted like school days and miso.

He pressed himself down again as he traced the skin with his tongue. He licked the salt from the tan muscles on the arms. Bit into the neck. Took in the scent of the masculine smell of arousal that was not his own.

He decided that he needed to taste that as well. He moved off of Naruto's lap and onto the floor. He smirked to himself at the confusion in the other's face as he turned his attention to unfastening the man's trousers.

Naruto allowed it. He let him nervously pull the zipper down and undo the brass button. He allowed him to push the pants down his thighs and he allowed him to bend down so that he was boldly staring at his hardness.

His mouth watered at the need. He needed to taste the pre-cum that he noticed had gathered in the tip, begging to be sucked out.

He turned his dark eyes up, asking for permission. When he supposed that he was given it, he moved closer. He opened his mouth and breathed, the hot air from his lungs caressing his rival's erection. It twitched.

He involuntarily moaned at the sight and closed his mouth to kiss the burning skin. He covered the entire surface of it with his lips in small passionate kisses.

That hand in his hair was back, tugging him and pulling him closer into the member.

He stroked his tongue over the tip, memorizing the taste of the clear liquid. His mouth tingled, he could no longer hold back. He took the head into his mouth and added suction, sucking it clean of the liquid.

"Fuck Sasuke," he heard and so he did it again, this time taking as much of the member into his mouth as would fit.

He moved his tongue over the skin within his mouth and began moving his head up and down to cause a pleasurable sensation for the fox. In each withdraw as he came to the head, he quickly inhaled air with his mouth while his lips remained on the skin. He slurped the tip, making the cock vibrate.

When it was fully engulfed in his mouth again, he moaned. The tip touched the back of his throat as he held his breath.

He had learned what would make Naruto feel good by unintentionally eavesdropping on several conversations of prostitutes during his time within Sound. The things that they had discussed had stuck in his head, buried somewhere unreachable until now. He hoped that what he had learned was useful.

"Do that again," the man begged of him and so he obeyed, this time adding the use of his hand as he held himself up with the other. The man's other hand came to rest on his back, rubbing it with a show of affection.

He began to create a rhythm as he stroked with both his hand and mouth. He decided that he enjoyed it. He enjoyed doing this intimate action for Naruto and he was sure that he would only ever do it for this particular man. He would do this for no one else, ever.

He felt the stickiness on his own cock as it ached to be touched. He reached his hand down, sliding his fingers into his underwear to caress the tip of his member.

It felt good and so he slid his whole hand inside and grasped himself. He put all of his weight upon his knees to hold himself up. The pressure made them ache but he ignored the slight pain. He looked up briefly at the man's face for approval. When Naruto gave it with a moan, he began stroking himself in time with the way he stroked Naruto in his mouth at the same time.

He felt the sensations build up within him and knew that he was nearing his climax already. He felt Naruto tense and knew that he too, was close.

He supposed that watching him touch himself while pleasuring the other man was too much for the fox to handle. The hands were placed on his shoulders and gestured for him to remove his mouth. He looked up in question.

"If you don't stop, I'll cum already," he was told.

The man moved his head down to claim another kiss from him as he pulled him into his lap after tucking himself back into his pants. He stood with Sasuke within his arms.

Sasuke felt protected as Naruto hoisted him into his arms, carrying him from the kitchen into the bedroom. He felt taken care of and safer than he had since his parents were alive.

He was placed on the bed and covered in that muscular body within seconds. The man fully covered him as they laid out straight over the mattress.

The heat was too much. He bucked into the hardness above him, begging for some type of relief.

The kimono had fallen behind him, fully exposing his body. His torso and legs lay naked, while his cock strained to be uncovered.

The man looked at him with lust and mischief as he came to notice the condition of his genitals before he rubbed a flat palm over the clothed tip.

"Please," Sasuke begged him.

"Please what?"

"Please take me," he said as the blush bloomed hot across his face. He was sure that his pale cheeks were a deep pink. He was not embarrassed, this was what he wanted.

He could hear the man breathing rapidly and deep, trying to catch up to how fast his blood was rushing. He noticed that sweat had formed across Naruto's forehead, anticipation welling up in the fox's stomach.

"Is that really what you want, Sas'?" he asked as Sasuke watched him lick his lips.

The pleasure at the sight was overwhelming and he let all the air in his lungs out in a swift exhale in attempt to clear his head.

"It is. Take me. Let me show you that I'm yours," he told the fox while reaching up to push hair away from that tan face.

"Do you love me?"

His heart beat rang in his ears and vibrated his veins. He wanted to scream his answer. He wanted to once again call the man a baka. It was a question that he had answered many times without the effort of an inquiry. It was a question that he had himself for his fox and felt irritated that it hadn't been answered.

He swallowed the saliva that had gathered in his mouth before he spoke, "Yes, I love you. I have always loved you."

He watched Naruto close his eyes as if finding some relief in the words before his neck was finally attacked with the intent to claim him.

The tenderness of his neck ached from the way the flesh was gnawed upon, the way the blood bubbled around the hard enamel, but he was exhilarated. He was finally marked and finally recognized as owned. The man that his heart belonged to finally after all the time he spent proclaiming his love, had recognized whom he was meant for.

He sighed and arched up into the body above him again, their bodies meeting somewhere in the middle and the vibration of their heart beats pounding against one another.

The wound was licked clean by that captivating tongue and he moaned at the way it did such a thorough job. His lips were taken and he begged silently in his head for it not to be just a hallucination.

"Take me," he said again.

Strong hands rubbed over his skin, caressed a still hard chest, brushed lightly over his now soft stomach.

For the first time in perhaps his entire life he felt self-conscious of his body. He had never been without muscles, he had never worried about his appearance. His anxiety must have shown on his face.

"It doesn't matter, Teme. It only means that I have an excuse to spend time with you if we are training together. I like the softness, it makes you look so much less life threatening," the fox told him with the smallest laugh on his face.

He relaxed into the touch at this and allowed the hands to touch him as they pleased. They drew closer with every second to the part of his body he wanted most to be attended to. It was a need and he was ever close to truly begging. He had begged only moments before, but it had been an effort that hadn't been required.

The man knew this and perhaps knew that honestly begging would have hurt his ego. He spared Sasuke the embarrassment and slipped his fingers into the waistband of his undergarments before sliding them down his thighs and off his legs all together.

Calloused fingers came to caress his hardened member and his mouth made a hissing sound as he reveled in the pleasure. But it was not enough for him and so he pushed his hips upwards to feel more of that hand.

Instead of providing him with relief, the hand drew away and the mouth decided to cover every inch of his body it could touch. The impatience grew within him but he stifled it by reminding himself that he had waited years for this, he would be able to wait a little longer.

Naruto began the kisses on with his forehead and trailed them down to every surface that he could. No part of his body was left forgotten until that mouth made its way down to his swelled erection.

It was passed by and ignored for the pursuit of his legs, kneecaps, feet, toes, and back up again. Not until every other available space was covered, did that mouth land on his tip. The tongue licked around the small soft bump that separated the head from the shaft and carefully dipped into the slit to lick out the juice that it found there.

He gasped, completely captivated by the blue eyes that looked up at him and observed his behavior as he held himself up with two outstretched arms behind himself. His mouth filled with saliva at the pleasure and he decided to let the man know that the sensations he was giving Sasuke were much too good to be real.

"Ah, Naruto it feels so good. You're so good," he told him with what breath he could come up with before allowing his upper body to fall back on the mattress with a small thumping sound.

He felt that hot mouth completely cover the length of him and decided that the touch of insanity that Naruto was forcing upon him was too astounding to ever wish for a sober mind. He thrust his hips until he was sure the man couldn't take him any deeper.

He reminded himself that it was not a dream and that it was not a hallucination as the affectionate suckles squeezed tightly around him.

His throat made a sound much like a whine when that mouth was taken away. he no longer cared for saving face and dignity didn't matter to him anymore in this moment, he was getting what he had always wanted, and so he did not regret the sound in the slightest.

Once the mouth was removed, he lifted his head in time to watch the fox spit into his own palm to make it slick. The tan fingers rubbed over the almost sticky liquid to spread it around and coat them.

Those sky colored eyes caught his as the hand was replaced around his member and began moving him. The saliva created a slippery reaction and that hand was able to move over him in such a tantalizing way that urged him to stop breathing.

"I love you," he told his rival again, just as he had done so many times before.

The hand let him go as the mouth took him in again as a reward. That slickened hand moved lower and a wet finger rubbed the outside of his entrance in warning as the fox's free hand came up to caress and hold the soft pouch below his cock.

He anticipated the penetration and he willed it to come quicker. He anticipated the burn and the sting. The hot heat of that hard organ pressing into him. The feeling of being completely filled by Naruto.

The finger finally entered him and slid against his walls as the head of yellow hair bobbed up and down over his erection. The pain didn't matter. Nothing else mattered but the realization that he was exactly where he wanted to be at the moment.

When the man was satisfied, he added another finger and then slowly the last. He allowed Sasuke to thrust as quickly and as deeply into his mouth as he desired as he worked to stretch and relax the muscles deep within Sasuke.

When the fox was satisfied with this too, he allowed his hard member to exit his mouth with an audible popping sound before he moved his body up closer to his face and Sasuke felt those lips take his own.

He could taste his own pre-cum on that mouth and it aroused him enough to give into the impatience.

"Put it in me. Be inside me," he said and watched those blue eyes lose bits and pieces of their control.

The fox closed his eyes and Sasuke knew that he was calculating his next move. He knew that that professional and calm composure his best friend had just come to develop over the years was being threatened to crumble and allow the raging desire he knew was hidden somewhere, to burst through and consume the man.

He allowed his eyes to become half lidded in a seductive advance as he arched his back while pushing his groin against Naruto's clothed one.

"Sasuke, I want to take this slow. I want to make love to you. There will be plenty of time for everything else," Naruto's mouth said as both tan hands gently pushed his hips back onto the bed.

It delighted him, he decided. He would never be able to deny that fact had he ever tried to. He was absolutely delighted.

The man had said that there was plenty of time. This meant that their encounter would not be the last and was not intended to be a onetime thing. It meant that perhaps he really would get to spend his second chance at life with his closest friend.

The man had said that he wanted to make love to him. It was such a flowery and feminine way of putting it, but it thrilled him. It displayed that the emotional and sensitivity that he had always known in the man, still existed. It showed him that he cared enough for Sasuke to call it that. It showed him that this intimacy was not out of pity.

He smiled to show his agreement and scolded himself for being impatient. He would allow Naruto to do as he desired because he ultimately wanted to please him. For years he had done anything but, and now this was his chance to show that he was capable of thinking about anyone else but himself.

He relaxed his body and lay still waiting for what the man had decided what would come.

"Good," the fox smiled back at him from above, his face revealing that he was pleased at Sasuke's submission.

The man moved off of his body to stand beside the bed. He lifted his head in wonder and watched the trousers of the Anbu uniform slide down those strong tan thighs and fall to the floor. His ink colored eyes took in the sight of the fully naked fox before him and the desire that had tightly bundled itself in his stomach threatened to burst through his skin.

Naruto noticed his gaze and allowed his knees to press down on the mattress as he decided to crawl over Sasuke's body to return to his pale pink lips.

When his rival had finished ravishing his mouth he felt Naruto put all of his weight upon him so that their bare skin lay connected to one another. A hard chest met his own. Legs lay upon legs. Sweaty hands graced his face as he placed his own on a broad back. Hard arousals created friction on one another as they both twitched with the suspense.

He suddenly felt nervous and the temperature within him rose to an unsoothable fever.

"Shh, don't worry Sasuke. I'll make you feel good, I promise," Naruto said.

He noticed that no promises not to hurt him were given. No promises of protection were proclaimed. No declaration of love was announced. He felt disappointment for a moment before he pushed it aside and decided that now was not the time to think of such things. It would not do.

It would not do and so he forced himself to look at the more positive possibilities for Naruto's lack of words. Perhaps the man did not love him, but maybe he was beginning to. Perhaps the man withheld his feelings because he was frightened of what Sasuke would do with them. he had been denied and abused by Sasuke for years, after all. Perhaps he was just waiting for the right moment.

He took a deep breath and hoped that at least one of these estimations was correct.

"You're so beautiful, Sasuke. I know I keep telling you that, but I can't help myself. I've never gotten to study you like this. I've never gotten to watch you so closely without electricity jolted through my body. I'm just, I'm just captivated by you, you know?"

He could have sworn his heart stopped for a few long seconds. He decided that it wasn't because of the romantic verbal affection offered to him and it wasn't because one of his undesirable traits had been identified. He supposed that it was because of the speech pattern and that habitual question that the man ended the sentence with.

It was a habit in speech he had known Naruto to have his entire life and the reality of that caused his heart to clench tightly enough to force the air out of his body. He felt vaguely as if he was hyperventilating.

The shortness in breath passed quickly however, when the fox sat up on his knees and positioned himself in between Sasuke's legs.

His legs were lifted onto either side of the man's head and made to rest upon those hard shoulders. Saliva was used again to thoroughly coat the man's cock as he intently watched the liquid spread out over the skin erotically.

"I'm sorry I don't have anything better to use with me, but this wasn't really an objective I had preplanned for the day," the man said, voice again filled with a laugh. He reassured the fox by nodding his head.

He felt the head of the cock begin to press against him and ignored the slight pain as he had done earlier. The man pushed himself into him slowly, a little at a time to give him time to adjust to the fulfillment.

He moaned as he completely took the member inside him. The sensation was so different than when he had been taken within his little isolated room that he was kept in. it was so different because he could finally see those eyes on his. He could finally see the desire and arousal played out on that face that had been hidden away from him behind that porcelain barrier. He could finally observe the same kind of emotions in the other man that he had hoped to see.

The man stilled himself and waited for what felt like forever. He once again gave into his impatience used those shoulders as leverage to pull his hips up and down and cause the cock inside him to rub against his walls and lightly brush against that desired spot deep within him.

He allowed his breath to come out hard at this exertion and pleasure and he knew that his friend was feeling just as good as him at the way those eyes were squeezed shut. When they opened, his hips were pressed into the bed again and the slow taunting thrusts began.

The slow rhythm felt like torture as Naruto took him. He wanted more. He needed it.

"Naru', please," he pled and smirked as the man gave into him.

The pace picked up, but remained just as passionate. His skin was painted with kisses and his heart refused to slow down. He found that he didn't mind and allowed himself to be overtaken.

Naruto began to press into him deeper than before with each movement of his hips and that delicious bundle of nerves received all the pleasurable pressure that Naruto could provide him.

His head became fuzzy and his mouth made incomprehensible sounds that he was sure he could never purposely recreate.

"So tight, Sasuke," the fox let out as he began to pound into him faster than before, urged on by his sounds.

It was too good and he knew it was no use to attempt to hold back the welling pleasure and need to release. He ignored the man's earlier warning and decided to again push his weight onto Naruto's shoulders to pull his lower body upwards to meet the hard thrusts. His arms wrapped around the tan body above him and a hand made its way into that yellow hair as he harshly pulled harder than intended.

"I love you," he said again and watched the pleasure from the words bloom across the man's face. A deep red blush had spread over the fox's collarbone and up his neck from the pleasurable physical labor.

He moved his head so that he could taste this new unknown color. It was hot and salty against his tongue and he decided that he wanted more. He attached his mouth to the skin and began sucking hard and harsh, determined to leave a mark. Naruto had left his mark, he would leave his.

He then made the almost unfair decision that since it was a nonnegotiable fact that he had belonged to Naruto and Naruto alone all along, he would _make_ Naruto belong to him as well. He decided that he would do anything to make it so.

The thought of owning the man created a deep aching pleasure within him and his body could not help but respond. He knew that his climax could not be held off.

"I'm so close," he whispered.

"Sasuke." His name was the only word that the man could manage to reply as he reached a calloused hand between their bodies and grasped his cock. Naruto aimed for that spot within him with each thrust of his waist and pumped Sasuke in time.

"Naruto!" It came out like a scream and he knew that his new neighbors would hear him, but it didn't matter.

It felt too good and he felt his own body tense up and relax as he came with a deep and loud moan. His thick and warm liquid shot into the space between them and fell against his stomach. A small amount was left on Naruto's hand and he swore that there would never be anything more arousing than watching the man take his own fingers into his mouth and audibly sucking Sasuke's cum clean as if it were tasty. He moaned at the pure satisfaction he drew from this simple act.

"Did it feel good, Teme?" the man asked him.

Naruto hadn't reached his own climax yet and he was determined to give the fox all that he needed in order to get there.

He ignored the oversensitivity that came with the pleasure of release and proceeded in pulling his hips up to grind against the still hard cock within him. It twitched and grew harder at his effort.

"You feel so good, the way you take all of me," his rival told him before resuming his thrusts into him.

The man pushed into him fast and hard whispered small sweet unexpected things as he neared his own climax. Sasuke couldn't help himself and felt himself become hard again at the sound of that voice.

He wanted to return the fox's passion. He wanted to express his affection and his pleasure.

"I love you so much. I want to make you feel good," he told the fox.

"You are making me feel good, can't you tell?"

The statement overwhelmed him and he thought that perhaps he was finally happy. He had succeeded in finally pleasing the man that he loved. He needed more.

"Cum for me," he dared to command.

As if obeying, he felt the man's muscles constrict and that cock twitch wildly inside him before he was filled up with hot liquid that had shot against the end of him with enough force to leak out of him and around Naruto's member.

He relaxed his body onto the bed as the man lowered himself to hover over him and his legs were released from the shoulders to lay flat against the bed around the fox's waist. Sweat dripped in slow falling rain droplets against his skin. He tried to still his breath as he waited for his heart to return to its normalcy.

"Sasuke," Naruto whispered to him to attract his attention. He gave it all, everything that there was to give.

The man was pleased at his attentiveness and his pale face was caressed with salty and moist fingers. He pressed into the touch and closed his eyes. He felt more content than he had ever been.

The hand moved from his face to grasp his fingers. It led his hand up to a sweaty tan chest and placed it against a rapid heart rhythm. It beat frantically like music against his palm and he looked into the scarred face for an answer.

He wondered what the reasoning was. He wondered what would lead the man to make Sasuke feel his beating heart.

When he had regained his breath the man spoke to him, "You did this to me. You made my heart beat so fast, this is not the first time. This is what you have always done to me. Each time I saw you, it felt like I had run for miles. You're exhausting."

He didn't quite know how to take it. He didn't understand if it was a compliment or an insult and he didn't have time to contemplate it. The man took another kiss from him before he moved his body to pull his softened member out of Sasuke.

As the man slowly tried to pull out of him, the liquid began to rush out of him, now more thinned out and less thick than at first.

"It's coming out of me," he stated and watched the man cease his movement and close his eyes.

"Don't say things like that, it kinda excites me," was the reply.

The part of him that still listened to his ego, urged him to give into the opportunity for mischief and he could not help himself.

"But it's so much, Naruto. Every time you move your stuff spills out of me. Oh, you're hard," he said as he internally smirked to himself. He reminded himself that it was still possible for him to make the man lose his control.

"I told you not to talk like that. You make me want to take you again as hard as I can."

He decided to accept the challenge. This was his rival after all. He bent his knees and pushed all of his weight on his feet as he pushed himself onto Naruto's rehardened member.

The man leaned down to whisper across his lips, "I'm serious, Sasuke. I will take you again and I will take you hard enough to leave a mark. I won't be able to stop myself if you keep this up. I don't want to hurt you."

And then he was that child that thought he was better than everyone else again. He was that genius prodigy that was destined to be an avenger again. He was the man's constant competitor once more.

"You can't hurt me, you're not strong enough."

Those blue eyes burned him as they used to when this had all begun on the academy grounds. They gave into the challenge and hungered for victory over Sasuke as they had always done.

His mouth was taken with a tempting brutality and he couldn't help but desire it. Naruto pushed into him harder than before, enough to make him ache silently. But he did not regret his challenge, he decided that he knew that Naruto needed this. He needed to release his frustrations.

He moaned at the thought of taking away all of the man's hurt and allowed his body to be flipped around after the fox had slipped all the way out of him.

The open kimono was taken off of his shoulders and thrown across the room. He allowed the man to push his chest into the bed. His cheek lying flat on the sheets. His knees pressing into the mattress. His right arm pulled into a twisting lock behind his back. His pale hips positioned into the air in a submissive pose, ready to be taken.

He did not like to be dominated, he had never allowed it before and he had no desire to do so now, but this was different. This was Naruto and that made it alright. He decided that perhaps if it was Naruto that was in control, he didn't mind submitting. He knew that all though he was not controlling the situation, he would be taken care of in the end and he couldn't ignore the pleasure he extracted from the lust he knew that his rival was feeling in that moment.

And so he allowed it. He allowed himself to be penetrated again with that hardness that had made him feel so good and he allowed that mouth to whisper things into his ear that he would consider dirty.

"Is this what you wanted, Sasuke? Did you want me to fuck you like this?"

Yes. The answer was yes, but he couldn't make his mouth move to form the word. A sound came out like a pleasurable bellow but no understandable words were audible.

He nodded his head against the mattress instead and felt the hand on his bent arm hold him tighter and another grasp his hip to pull him harder against that cock.

"Is this what you wanted from me? Is this what you were waiting so long for?"

To thism the answer was the opposite. No it is not what he had initially wanted from Naruto. What he had wanted was love. What he had wanted was his friendship. This was just a bonus. He didn't know how to react and so he remained still and focused on the way that spot was pressed with each movement. Saliva had begun to gather in the side of his mouth.

"I wanted this too, you know? I wanted this so badly. I wanted my friend back, but I couldn't help but want this too. I couldn't stand it no matter how hard I tried. I used to lie awake at night when the loneliness wouldn't let me sleep and the thought of you would torture me. I'd think of what it would be like to have you back in my life, what it would be like to spend time with you. And then my thoughts would always eventually turn to something like this. I'd start to think of what it would be like for you to allow me to touch you and then I'd decide to think of all the ways that you belonged to me without you knowing." Naruto paused in his speech to pick of his pace and push into him hard enough to break him, but Sasuke didn't mind, it was much too good for him to care about the pain that accompanied the pleasure.

"You have no idea how many times I pathetically touched myself to the thought of you. Hell, I'm not even into guys, but you've always done that to me Sasuke. You turn me into this animal like creature every time you even think to notice me. The way your eyes would look at me and the way I could imagine your smooth voice telling me to save you, I wanted you so bad. I wanted you so goddamn bad and you were such a bastard to me. You kept running from me and the further you got from me, the more dumb I felt. It was so hard not to take you and make you mine from the moment I saw you sitting so cooperative and beautiful in that room. Fuck, you feel so good like this too."

His heart hurt but he couldn't focus on the deep cracks that had been etched into it by Naruto's words. He couldn't concentrate or comprehend what was being said, the way that hard cock moved in and out of him with such an ecstasy invoking force. The spit finally dripped out of his parted lips and onto the sheets from the pleasure.

The hand on his wrist was removed and his arm was positioned beside him in a more comfortable effort as a hand reached around his waist to grab his stiff erection, while the other one still pushed and pulled his hips.

The sensations drew the insanity within him out to the surface and he couldn't stop himself from taking everything that he was given.

Moist lips hovered over his exposed ear and that voice continued, "I finally have you in front of me and I feel like I can't get enough of you. You gave yourself to me so I'm going to take you as much as I can. If you are mine, I will not share you. I refuse to let anyone ever have you again. That snake thought you belonged to him, but I always let him know otherwise every chance I got. I've known all along that you were mine, but hearing you confirm it earlier released a part of me that I had been holding in for such a long time. Thank you for setting it free, Sasuke."

"Naru," his own mouth replied. He was pleased with this intended agreement. He did not want to be shared. He did not want to ever belong to another. He wanted Naruto and only Naruto.

As the man's breathing became loud and deep, he reflected upon the man's first words. He had touched himself to Sasuke as Sasuke had touched himself to him. He felt his muscles tighten around his entrance and his member strain within his hand.

The image of Naruto putting those strong hands around his own hard cock and stroking himself to the thought of Sasuke, drove him crazy. He imagined the sounds the man must have made alone in a room somewhere. He imagined the things the man must have been thinking as he had caught a short glimpse of Sasuke in the forest as he had chased. He pictured the man relieving himself in the dark during a mission while everyone else slept after he had seen Sasuke.

He couldn't hold back any longer and he shot his hot seed into Naruto's hand and the sheets under him without warning. He arched his back upwards and moved his hips to ride out the power of his orgasm.

The man took advantage of his extra tightness and pounded into Sasuke and drew his own pleasure from the pale body.

Naruto came inside him for the second time during the interaction and he felt an immense satisfaction as he felt Naruto's sticky cum fill him up again.

The man placed a small amount of weight on him as he tried to calm down. An opened hand caressed his sweaty back up and down in affection.

The fox pulled himself completely out of Sasuke, disconnecting them. He urged Sasuke to lay down with a slight pressure from the hands that had been placed on either side of his rib cage.

He observed the man's heavy breathing as Naruto laid down next to him, moving his head towards his body and kissing his salty shoulder.

As he came down from his high, he began to feel fear. He feared that the words Naruto had said to him implied that he was just an object, just a means of release. This was a thought that had frightened him all along and it seemed highly possible from the fox's rant.

His body felt cold from this and from his drying sweat. He couldn't help but shiver.

"Are you cold, Teme?" his best friend asked him.

He was paralyzed with the anxiety that had taken a hold on him and didn't respond. A sheet that had become rumpled and forgotten about was pulled up from the bottom of the bed and placed over both of their bare bodies.

His fear began to slowly move away from him as Naruto pulled his body against him and held him to his chest.

"I love you," he said, desperately needing to hear the words returned to him.

But they didn't come, only a kiss to the top of his head and small caress of fingertips across his face.

There was nothing he could do and so he relaxed into the touch and let a false sense of calmness settle over him. Sleep temporarily took him as he closed his eyes and he slipped into a shallow unconsciousness.

"Sasuke, you can't go to sleep yet," the fox said. His shoulder was shook as his eyes opened at Naruto's request.

The man's stomach groaned a hungered cry into the room.

"Are you hungry too, Sas'?" he was asked.

He hadn't thought about it before. It hadn't been important until this moment, but his body reminded him that he hadn't eaten in a while longer than what was acceptable as an ache formed in his belly. He nodded.

"Well, let's get cleaned up first and then we can eat."

The fox left the bed and the warm sheets first before helping Sasuke get up as well.

His behind hurt and his legs ached. It hurt to stand and his legs shook with the over tense muscles. His knees gave out on him and he knew that he would have fallen to the floor in a hard thud had his rival not been behind him to catch him in a quick embrace.

"Be careful, ok? I'm sorry if I hurt you," Naruto apologized.

"It's alright, I'm fine. I just need a minute," he told him.

He tried again. He took small steps put failed as he finally did fall. This, he was embarrassed of. He was not clumsily and every movement he made was always carefully calculated. This failure displeased him and made him feel helpless.

The man offered him help as he leaned down to pick Sasuke up into his arms as he had done earlier.

He was carried into the bathroom and leaned against the shower wall as the fox twisted the knobs and checked the temperature of the water. When it was warm enough, the man stepped into the small waterfall with him. The water sprinkled over him from the shower head and the heat made him drowsy.

The man carefully pulled him away from the wall and positioned himself behind Sasuke as he began to lather the pale skin with the scented soap.

"I always thought your skin would smell like vanilla," Naruto confided in him.

The fox's hands rubbed small soapy circles into his chest and stomach, washing away all the evidence of their earlier activities. Sasuke allowed every part of his body to be washed by those hands and again, felt taken care of and protected.

All parts of his body were touched and rubbed clean with those slow and patient hands as he steadied himself with one hand placed on the wall. The man kneeled behind him to reach every place.

The soft curve of his behind was separated and his entrance forced to open slightly. The feeling was unpleasant and so he made a displeased noise with his mouth.

"I have to clean you here too. Don't worry, I'll be gentle," he was told before a slow finger reentered him and moved around to free the sticky liquid from inside him.

He thought about what had been done to get that liquid there in the first place. He thought about the realization that the man he was in love with, his most precious person, had been inside him. Had made love to him. Had fucked him. Had claimed him.

He couldn't help himself. He grew harder with the movement of that finger and thought about how slick the soap would feel against him.

The fox sensed his tension and stood up to get a better look at his face.

"Are you alright, Teme? I didn't hurt you did I? Oh, you liked that, huh?" he was asked as he felt those blue eyes scan over his body and land on his hardness.

"Come here," the man instructed as he pulled Sasuke's back into his chest and positioned his body to be directly hit by the warm water.

He touched him, the water aiding in the slickness as the hand moved up and down his member. It stroked him fast, in a rhythm that the man had come to learn was his favorite. It circled around his cock, making a slight twisting motion and he knew that although he had already came twice already, he would cum quickly if the pace was kept up.

"Naruto," the name left his lips as the other tan hand slipped between his curve and pressed itself inside him. It moved deep and fast until it hit him where he liked it best. He howled at the feeling.

"See, I already know how to make you feel good," Naruto told him.

The man was patient with him. He did not stop touching or slow his pace until Sasuke had had enough. With the way he was being touched and the way that the water's warmth caressed him, he came as quickly as he had anticipated and relaxed backwards into the body behind him. His body had become exhausted and he was sure that he wouldn't be able to take anymore.

He was carefully helped to sit down on the shower floor as Naruto positioned himself behind him. He rested into the man's chest and allowed his head to lie on his shoulder as the water still hit his skin. Arms wrapped around him as if to protect him from harm.

They stayed in this way until the water ran cold and he leaned forward to turn it off. They didn't move after the water had stopped. Instead, the man held him tighter and seemed to silently refuse to allow him to get up.

His wet dark hair was pushed away from his face by almost nervous fingers and a kiss landed on his cheek from behind.

"I love you, Sasuke. I have loved you for so long and I feel like I'm going to wake up tomorrow and find out that you never even existed in the first place."

He turned his head to look into that scarred face, searching for hint that it was a lie. When he found none, he continued to stare in disbelief.

The man noticed his shocked expression and smiled as he moved in closer to claim the mouth that was rightfully his.


	18. Chapter 17 Explanations And Pleasure

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 17

Explanations and Pleasure

He allowed the warmth of the bed to envelope him and spread over his skin to heat the chilled tissue. A solid body wrapped itself around him, a leg thrown over his slim waist, a chin on his shoulder, a tan arm stretched out over his heart.

The man's position relative to him showed a hungry protective possession and he came back to the realization that he didn't mind being conquered and taken over by his fox.

He smiled to himself. He was possessed. He was owned. He belonged to someone. Then he smiled longer and wider, an almost insane Cheshire grin cut into his elegant face as he thought about just whom his master was and always would be.

He finally belonged to the only person alive that had ever been worthy enough to capture his heart, had ever been able to captivate him.

He was happy, he supposed. He had accomplished his goals. He had gained a powerful and devastating strength that could hardly be challenged, save by Naruto himself. He had been granted permission to live and offered the opportunity to start again. He had been allowed to confess all of the thoughts and emotions that he had long ago locked away and he now belonged to the man that he loved.

Yes, he was happy and yes, he was content. He remembered that not all that long ago he hadn't thought he could ever be happy again. He never thought that the carefree life he had lived with his parents within the protected walls of a strong village would never be obtainable again. He was happy and so he allowed himself to finally feel that soothing sliver of hope he had been ignoring for the majority of his life.

But still, he was a highly skilled shinobi and he still had the ability to notice that something wasn't quite right yet. He had the skills to pick up all the pieces and flip them around, easily detecting the one that didn't fit into place as it should.

There was something that he needed to know in order to feel fully complete. He swallowed the saliva that had gathered in his throat and dared to begin his questioning.

"Dobe?" he whispered into the early evening light landing within the bedroom and covering a sliver of that man's face where it lay close to his property's body.

"Hmm?" came a sleepy reply with those eyes closed to avoid the sun.

Suddenly he was nervous. Suddenly he thought that maybe asking his questions wasn't such a good idea after all. Perhaps the answers would be heartbreaking enough to shatter the happiness and the contentedness like a mirror around him.

He panicked within the small seconds of silence. Perhaps Naruto had changed his mind already. Perhaps he would want Sasuke to forget the words he had used as they had sat on the floor of the shower. He hadn't said them again, maybe he wouldn't again.

It didn't matter. He needed to know.

"You love me?" he swallowed audibly as he lifted a slender hand up to caress a naked tan shoulder with his fingertips.

The man lifted his head from its resting place, suddenly no longer sleep induced, and stared at him with those blue eyes that could persuade the world to crumble.

"Yeah, I love you. Do you doubt me?" The fox asked him, those eyes looking Sasuke over and scanning for a possible answer.

He let his breath out in a small silent roar before continuing on his pursuit for the truth.

"I don't doubt you. I know that you do but how long?"

"How long what?" was asked of him, a slight confusion in that voice.

"How long have you been in love with me?" anxiety played in his mouth as he asked.

The man put all of his weight on an arm and lifted his body up to look down at Sasuke where he still lay flat on the bed. A calloused hand came to his pale face and rubbed small circles on his jawline, where he realized that they often landed when the conversation was serious.

He stayed quiet and allowed those circles to continue sliding across his skin in a comforting gesture as he watched the fox open his mouth to speak.

"I've loved you since forever, I think. Even when we'd fight in the playground, I knew you were special to me. I never hated you as much as I wanted you to think, actually I didn't really hate you at all. I was jealous though. I was jealous that you got all the attention and had all those friends but didn't want any of them, and I was alone and didn't have anyone. But after a while the jealousy faded away I guess, because all I seemed to want to do after we were put on the same team was be one of those people that tried so hard to be your friend. I felt like if I could accomplish being your friend, like no one else could, being lonely would be worth it."

The circles ceased as the mouth closed. He knew there was more to come, there had to be and so he kept silent and waited as the mouth leaned down to leave a kiss on his forehead and then later returning to its position above him.

"I don't think that I really understood that it was love that I felt for you until later though. Jiraya threatened me. He said that he wouldn't teach me anything or train me at all if I didn't give you up because I was a fool and I was wasting my time trying to save you. He was right, to be honest, but I didn't care. I told him that it didn't matter if he trained me or not, I wasn't gonna give you up. I told him that I didn't mind being and idiot or a fool for the rest of my life if it was for your sake. I said that you were my most precious person and there really wasn't a point in me having a future if you weren't in it. There was no way that anyone could change my mind about going after you and I said that I wouldn't rest until I got the chance to be near you again. Ha, it all sounds pathetic now that I think about it, but it's how I felt. The look he was giving me as he just stared at me, helped me realize that I loved you," the fox told him, a light pink tinged those scarred cheeks.

He reached up to touch them, to trace them with his fingertips, to console the embarrassment, to show his approval of the answer he had been handed.

"But, he trained you anyway," he stated to the fox, implying a hidden question.

"Yeah, he must have realized that there was no persuading me and I guess he understood without me telling him straight out how I felt about you, because he changed his mind and told me that I wasn't allowed to give up then if that was the path that I had chosen. You know, he never questioned why I picked you, why I had picked a boy I mean. Of course he asked me why I would run after someone so cruel to me, but he never questioned me or put me down because you're a guy. He was understanding like that. He never judged me, although sometimes he probably should have. He let me know when I was being an idiot though. Ah, I'm sorry, I just miss him a lot I guess." A hand when to the back of that head and rubbed the yellow hair, most likely creating a knot, in that nervous gesture Sasuke knew so well.

He realized that he had been absent for much too long. He hadn't even been there to comfort the fox in the loss of his teacher. The guilt welled up in him and threatened to spill out of his throat.

He sat up from where he lie and took that nervous hand in his and pulled it away from the hair. It laid in his lap, fingers entwined like vines together weaving a pattern of tan and white.

His mouth wouldn't move, although he knew that it should. He knew that this was the part where he was supposed to practice being a warmer person than he was before. This was the place where he was given a chance to display the ways that he could take care of his fox. But the words wouldn't come and so he settled for a kiss.

He pressed his mouth over the man's and allowed the emotion and the heartbreak to be conveyed through his lips.

He estimated that the man understood the silent message and a hand became tangled in his dark hair before that mouth pulled away from his.

"I just. I just miss him so much sometimes. I never even got to say goodbye to him, I never will. They never found his body. We just know that he's in the bottom of some body of water. I never got to mourn him, I was too busy. Pain attacked the village right after and I never got the chance to be sad. I was angry though. I was so mad. I almost let my anger get the best of me when I faced Nagato. He was so weak, I could have killed him without bothering to try very hard. He was once Pervy Sage's student and he's the one that killed him, if you didn't already know. I was raging with hate inside, but you know, you're the reason I was able to control myself. I wanted revenge so badly, but then I thought of you and how revenge took you away from me. I thought about how you had allowed your hatred to consume you completely and ruin the life you could have had here with us. I realized that revenge wasn't worth it. And Nagato just wanted peace, that's all. He was a good person underneath everything." The man sniffled, small intakes of breath inhaled into the nose. The hand in his hair was removed and went to wipe beneath a wet blue eye.

But the sad expression and the water didn't last long. Within seconds that small version of a well-known smile emerged and he could hear a deep breath being taken in to clear the body of its stillness.

"But it's ok. I know that he wouldn't want me to be sad. I'm pretty sure he'd be happy to see the way things turned out. I just wish that he were here to see all the things I've accomplished in his absence. I wish he could have seen the way I fought during the war and the way I never forgot about the things that he taught me, all the conversations that we had. I wish that he would have been able to see them mark me with the symbol of the Anbu. I wish he would have gotten to see you back in the village, see the way me being a fool paid off in the end. And I really wish that he could see that not giving up on you was worth it. You've changed so much but you're still the person that I chased after, all in one. I truly wish that he could have seen that the capacity to change does exist and how good of an example of that you are. Although he didn't know you personally, I think that he would have been proud of both of us."

"He would be," Sasuke assured him. There was nothing else that he could offer his rival.

The fox leaned in for another kiss, using his free hand to cup and cradle the vulnerable back of his neck. A slick tongue invaded his mouth, tracing all that it could find as it invoked the heat in his body to rise.

The lips disconnected from his far sooner than he desired and that hard forehead was again pressed into his as it had been earlier in the day.

"You should know that this isn't what I wanted all these years. Don't frown Sasuke, that's not what I meant. Of course this is what I've always wanted, but it's something that I've always tried to keep to myself because I was sure that you'd reject me as you did with everything else. What I meant is that this is not the reason I've wanted you to come home. I hadn't planned this and it's not what I ever expected. I just wanted to be close to you and maybe persuade you to be my friend again. I never thought about whether or not you felt the same way that I did because I was sure it wasn't possible. I honestly thought that you didn't want anything to do with me, like you kept telling me. Don't misunderstand me, I'm very happy. I've never been this happy before, but I don't want you to think that this is at all like what I had expected from you. I don't want you to think that I had ever plotted to force you into this."

He pulled away from the position and connection that signified that unbreakable bond that they'd always had and looked down at the hand he held in his lap. He moved his fingers over the exposed palm and studied the lines drawn there in the soft sensitive skin before he spoke in reply.

"I hadn't expected this either. I had been ready to die. I had been ready to give up everything that I had gained for the sake of your promise to her. I wanted this more than anything. I always did from the beginning, although I never allowed myself to recognize it for what it was. But I didn't think you could ever love me, I didn't think that I deserved to have you care about me. I just needed you to know how I felt about you in order to gain some sense of peace before dying."

The hand he looked at was torn away from his grasp and both tan hands quickly came to rest on either side of his face, forcing his gaze upwards. His vision focused on the blueness in front of him.

"Sasuke, I wouldn't have let you die. You know that, right? Even if Tsunade had sentenced you to death, I would have never allowed it. I would have done anything I could to save you, even if it meant becoming a criminal. I know I shouldn't admit that, but it's true. You are the reason that I've done the things that I have. You're the entire reason I've trained so hard and become so strong. You're the reason I've given up the things that I have. You are the reason that I've had the determination not to allow all of the bad things that have happened to me take me over and distort me. Without you, this is all just pointless."

As he studied the eyes, he watched the water gather and then slip down the cheeks to pool in the slightly raised ridges of those infamous scars. He reached up to wipe them away, in effort to make the emotions vanish before him.

His throat closed up for several seconds as he tried to contemplate all the ways his emotions had begun to react to that statement.

Naruto would have given up everything for him. He would have saved Sasuke's life or died trying. He had said that Sasuke was his reason. Had said that he had become strong for Sasuke. Had said that Sasuke was the reason he remained optimistic and determined.

It felt good, he decided. It filled him with a light feeling before the guilt set in and begun to drag him downwards. He felt guilty for the offer of that abandoned dream.

"You could have never become the next Hokage if you had become a criminal, especially if it was for my sake. It would have shown that your loyalty did not whole heartedly belong to the Leaf and it would display the weaknesses that you have."

"Sas', don't you get it? That doesn't matter to me the same way that it used to. I still want it just as badly as I always have, but I want you more. I would rather run off with you and be considered a criminal for helping you escape and become a missing nin and deserter, than lose you. Than live one minute knowing that you weren't breathing."

He let the words sink in. He was completely and utterly moved. The emotions and descriptions about how the man felt for him were just as he had hoped that they would be. They were as he often fooled himself into believing. They were what he felt he never deserved from the man that he had driven his fist through.

"You still shouldn't have given up that dream for my sake," he told the fox.

"I was thinking a lot about goals since you've returned. I was thinking about all of the ones that we set when we were younger and I realized that there is one that you still haven't accomplished. You said that you had run out of goals, but you forgot about one. And then I realized how selfish I've been."

"What goal do you mean?" he asked, unsure of what the answer would be.

"You told us once that you wanted to revive your clan. That's why I'm being selfish. By keeping you to myself, I'm not allowing you to do that and that's not fair to you. I want you to have kids like you wanted and to have a family like you need. We could stop this now. You could marry one of the girls in the village, like Sakura-Chan, and restart your clan."

The seriousness in the tone of voice frightened him, it almost seemed like it wasn't meant to be a joke as he had perceived it. He pulled away entirely away from the hands to get a clearer picture.

"What? How could you say something like that?" He was angry and nervous and it showed in his voice.

"I just want you to be happy. I'm keeping you away from your goal like this and I don't want you to resent me for it. I can't give you any kids without some fancy jutsu or something and I know your clan is important to you. Besides, Sakura-Chan would make a good wife."

He was angry and he couldn't help himself. He put all of his weight into the force of his arm as his fist connected with the man's jaw.

After it had made contact and the loud clicking sound of his knuckles hitting the bones in Naruto's face, he felt sorry. He felt so very sorry as he took in the look of surprise on the fox's face, but he was still angry.

"How could you say something like that? You're still just a baka! If you were any kind of intelligent, you would have realized that that is not a goal of mine anymore, it's just a commodity. I no longer care enough about my clan to ensure that it is continued and I don't want a wife, I want you," he yelled, uncaring if the whole village heard him.

Those hands were on him again, holding onto his shoulders.

"Shhh calm down, Teme. I just want you to be happy," the fox attempted to console him.

"Is that what you want? Is it what you want after telling me that you're happy to have me like this? Would you really want to see me with someone else?" He allowed his anger to fully display on his face.

"No! Of course not! I told you before that I don't want to share you. I just, I was talking to Sakura-Chan a few days ago and she reminded me about how you had wanted a family and I felt guilty for keeping you away from that." the words sobered as they came to an end and he began to feel the coldness settle over him.

He was done fighting. He understood, not fully, but enough. He allowed himself to fall forward, his body falling into the man's and his cheek resting in the crook of that tan neck.

"But don't you love her?" he whispered, asking the question he had been wondering from the start.

"Huh? Sasuke, no. No, I don't," Naruto said.

"But you've always loved her. You were always trying to get her attention. You even risked your life trying to bring me back just because she made you promise to do so." Yes, after everything he decided that he was still jealous of her.

"I thought that I did a long time ago, but I realized that it was just an infatuation. She was the only girl that acknowledged me even a little and I ate up her attention, always wanting more. But I could never feel the same way about her as I did you, so I knew that it wasn't love. It's different, you know? When I'm with you, there's this force that urges me to reach out and touch you, to grab for your attention even if it's a fight. It's a feeling I get in my stomach that begs me to do something to make you look at me, to make you speak to me. It's not that way with her. Besides, she could never love me like she loves you. And I hated her a little bit for that, I think. I hated it because I wasn't good enough for her and I hated it that she was trying to take you away from me. I hated how she wanted you just as much as I did and there was always this unspoken chance that you wanted her too. I did make her that promise because I cared about her, but it was more for me than for her."

He let the truth settle within him, content with this answer and angry at her for the rejection that she made his best friend feel.

He decided to move on to the subject he had intended to investigate from the beginning.

"If you've loved me all this time, why didn't you tell me sooner?"

"Hehe, actually there was a bunch of times I was prepared to tell you a long time ago. Honestly, it was the first thing I wanted to tell you when we found you in that underground hideout. You looked so beautiful standing above me and it was the first time I'd seen you in years. But I could only make my mouth say your name, and then you jumped down to meet me and you looked at me so disinterested that I changed my mind about telling you. Then after the Kages' summit and Sakura tried to hurt you under that bridge, I actually started to say it before Madara cut me off and took you away. I wanted you to know so badly, I needed you to know. I was so pissed that he took you from me again. I thought that maybe if you knew why I was chasing after you, you'd take pity on me or something and actually listen to me a little. Would it have changed your mind?"

He thought about it before he answered.

"No. I wouldn't have ceased because I still had the ambition to kill Danzo and I couldn't do that without Madara's assistance. Afterwards, perhaps."

"Really?" Those eyes scanned him again, searching for something unnamable.

He nodded his head in small increments and decided to move on.

"If you wanted me to know, why didn't you tell me days, weeks ago?" He tried asking again.

"I told you, Teme. I couldn't tell you who I was in the beginning, I wasn't allowed," was the man's response.

"But why not afterward? Why not as soon as she released me? Why not hours before you did?" suddenly the answer was urgent and he needed to hear it desperately.

The man brought a hand up to tousle his yellow hair, a sign that he was nervous as well.

"You'll be angry, but I couldn't help myself. I wanted you to hurt, not that much, just a little. I wanted you to feel as rejected as I had all these years. Me being silent about my feelings wasn't rejecting you, but I could tell that it drove you crazy with the possibility that it had meant that. I wanted you to see how it felt to want something that was right in front of you but denied it, even though you knew that you had a right to try it out. I wanted you to feel like your heart was breaking, I wanted you to feel like I did all the times I watched your back fade out of view as you ran in the other direction. It was wrong of me, I know, and I didn't enjoy it even in the slightest. My enjoyment in watching you suffer wasn't the point and honestly I wasn't planning on telling you how much I love you until later. But I couldn't help it. I had to tell you. The way you let me have you so willingly. The way you smiled at me, I never saw you smile like that before. The way you let yourself be completely vulnerable around me. The way your body connected to mine like it was always made for that. I just couldn't help myself."

He was both angry and relieved. He was angry that he had been tricked and he was angry that Naruto had had the intention to hurt him, to wound him, to cut him. But the anger fell away with the realization that perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps he deserved to squirm and writher with the anticipation regarding the information that would have the power to alter his life.

As the anger simmered and lost its heat, he began to pull in the relief of it all and wrap it around himself tightly to sooth the burn. He was relieved that the man had become strong enough to go through with a plan such as that for as long as he did.

The Naruto that he had once known in their childhood, had always had difficulty in keeping to the plan when it aimed to inflict emotional pain and damage. The man displayed his new gained strength in tricking him as he did.

He felt relieved that the man had loved him all along, that it wasn't a beautiful and terrible lie. He was satisfied that there was an eventual plan to tell him the truth. There had been a plan to tell him, and that's all that mattered really.

He moved his face to caress the tan shoulder softly with his lips. He applied pressure. He left a kiss on that skin, a tender admission that he wasn't as angry as expected.

"I'm sorry," Naruto told him and suddenly it was all alright. He regained that sense of being protected that he had felt earlier. Naruto would protect him now, there was no more need to fight.

There was no more need to fight for power or dominance. There was no longer a revenge to carry out and there were no more loose ends that needed to be burned away.

He pressed himself further into the body in front of him as those calming hands rubbed soothing lines down and up again on his pale back.

He lifted his head and placed both sturdy and battle ready hands on either side of the man's shoulders and pushed hard with the intent to force Naruto to lie down on the bed beneath them.

The sudden aggression surprised the fox and he allowed Sasuke to do as he pleased as his back hit the mattress. He disentangled his legs from beneath him and laid them out straight.

Sasuke was pleased at this submission and moved in to claim his prey. He moved on top of the man, their bare chests touching, the curve of his bottom sitting over a muscled stomach. He kissed where his head had landed, leaving pleasurable wet stars across the man's skin. Hands came again to rub along his back.

He moved his waist down so that he sat atop the fox's groin. He heard a moan and he took a bite of the flesh that lie in front of him, nibbling to ease away the pain of the earlier conversation. Another moan and he added his tongue.

The skin under him burned like a fever and a blush grew across that face as he lifted his head to get a better look. He kissed the mouth, asking for all of the forgiveness that he needed.

He moaned into the mouth and the hands on his skin held him tighter, pulled him in closer. He felt hot all over at the feel of their strength and he couldn't help himself from feeling aroused. His member became engorged with rushing blood and he pressed himself forward, rubbing it on the stomach.

"Sasuke," the man whispered into his mouth as he felt the hardness beneath him grow and enlarge, twitching at the contact.

He moaned a reply and moved his waist as he had earlier, enticing the man's desire to rise. Another moan poured from his mouth like candlewax.

"I want you, Naruto," He told the fox before he bit the neck again reciprocating that sense of ownership the man had placed upon him before.

The fire within him ignited and fully raged, the heat sickeningly sweet and overwhelming.

Naruto began thrusting his hips upward from the bed, grinding his cock on Sasuke's skin.

It was too much and he could no longer take it as slow as he had intended. He had planned to make the man agonize with the anticipation of pleasure. It was no use any longer, he couldn't help himself but to give into what he assumed the fox wanted.

He slid further down on the man's waist so that where he sat, their erections stood against one another. He wrapped a katana calloused hand around them as a tan one came to rest on his hip and another tugged at his hair.

The way his skin rubbed on Naruto within his grasp, urged the insanity within him to take control. He quieted it and gave it permission to influence his actions but not consume him completely.

He placed his free hand on the hard stomach and leaned his head down to kiss the chest. The salty taste tingled and arched across his tongue.

He moaned and began to move his hand in a slow rhythm, creating a delicious delirium that infected and clouded over his mind.

"Naruto," he called against the chest.

The hand in his hair pulled harder, a sharp commanding tug. The one on his hip moved around his waist and up his back, the new sweat over his skin making its ascent smoother and much more appealing to the man.

He began to move his hand in a faster pace, causing the fox to hold him tighter. A chin landed in his dark hair, a hot breath causing it to become damp with the heat and the moisture.

And then his hair was pulled again, this time urging him to look up at the man's face. He stopped moving his hand to better pay attention.

"Sasuke, this is your last chance for what I offered you. If you want to revive your clan, we have to stop right now because if I get to have you one more time I will never ever give you up. I will keep you for myself and never let you get away from me. Don't smile like that, I'm being serious." Naruto told him sternly.

He continued to smile, thinking of something smart and insulting to say as he once would have done. He let it fall away and reminded himself that that attitude was of no use for him with this man anymore. Instead he continued to touch them within his hand before speaking.

"I told you, I want you. This is what I want. If I want kids, I'll try to find a way to have them with you. It's not a concern for me right now and it shouldn't be for you either. I don't want anyone else but you, please don't suggest that again." he smirked, allowing his eyes to close slightly and leave them half lidded. "Don't you want me too, Bibiri-kun*?"

At the jest, the fox thrust his hips to take in more of the physical contact and to give into Sasuke's silent dare.

He knew that he took the man's breath away by the way the fox stilled and ceased inhaling the oxygen around them for a few silent seconds.

"Sasuke, let me have you," his best friend commanded.

Those blue eyes filled with lust and a raw and overtaking need as he examined them with his own. Knowing that that look was only for him, caused burning sparks and embers to rush through him.

He felt the slick stickiness from their pre-cum begin to coat his hand and cover their cocks.

Still it was too much and he too, bucked his hips into Naruto's thrusts, squeezing both members tighter in his grasp.

He felt the tightness in his lower stomach begin to build and he panted out his defeat to his worthy challenger, "It feels too good."

He gave up and sat back up from where he was still against that chest, forcing his hand to stop its rhythmic pattern. He released their erections and brought his hand to his mouth to allow his saliva to fall from his lips and into the palm, just as he had watched Naruto do earlier.

He replaced his hand only around Naruto's member, covering it completely. Stroked the man until he was rewarded with a long and deep throated moan. Taunted by licking his lips.

When he was satisfied he removed his hand once more and to the fox's surprise, he mounted the tip of Naruto's cock. He allowed the wet head to press slowly into his entrance.

The man let him know his surprise as a sweaty hand came to apply a slight pressure on his shoulder, gesturing for him to stop.

"Sasuke, you'll hurt yourself. You should let me prepare you first," his rival suggested.

"I don't care if it hurts, I'm too impatient. I want you right now and I'm pretty sure that you know by now that I tend to get what I want," he explained and without allowing any time for Naruto to further disapprove or scold him, he pressed himself down further until the man's cock was completely inside him.

It burned little painful cuts throughout the lower half of his body and began to creep into the softness of his belly. He ignored it, it wasn't relevant at the time. All the pain would be worth it as he anticipated it being washed away by the pleasure he expected to feel.

"Sasuke, you're still so tight. No matter how many times I take you, you're still as tight as the first time. Your walls are squeezing around me so good," the man said in between harsh breaths as he attempted to keep control and hold back from thrusting upwards and deeper into Sasuke.

He sat still for a few seconds, pushing the pain aside and adjusting to feeling full. When he was ready, he placed his hands on his rival's stomach and pushed his waist up to slide the member out of him until only the tip remained inside.

He clenched his lower body's muscles, creating a tightening sensation around Naruto's tip. He knew that the man assumed that he planned to take things slow and that he would lower himself cautiously back down to take him inside again. He had no such intentions as he allowed all of his weight to fall back down, quickly covering the cock once more.

He pressed himself down as hard as he could, hoping for that spot inside him to be caressed.

"Teme, you don't understand how good that feels," the man said with a pleasurable pained expression to offer him.

The man thrust his hips off the mattress and into him to subconsciously beg him to move again, and so he did. He lifted himself up again and began to ride his best friend as his waist was grabbed with needy hands.

He was helped to move up and down in harsh and quick movements by those hands. He lost himself in the feeling as his walls were rubbed and caressed with Naruto's cock. The faint slapping sounds of his skin connecting to Naruto's as the man thrust into him, aroused him further and made him whimper from the need to hear more of it.

The hands pulled him down and held him there, attempting to press the member inside him as deeply as possible, those hips still pushing up into him. He closed his eyes to take in the feel.

Then that spot was finally pressed and his mouth fell open, blooming soundlessly in the pleasure as his hot breaths left his lungs to dance in the air.

The fox wound a strong hand around his elegant and vulnerable neck, pulling him down to capture that silent moan with his own mouth. He gave into the man's demands and allowed his body to tumble forward into the body beneath him. The movement caused that spot to be further caressed and pressed as the weight was redistributed.

"Teme, I can't stand this anymore," Naruto admitted to him, their mouths temporarily disconnected to inhale the hot air between them.

The man sat up from where he lay and held Sasuke to him by his pale hips. Naruto lifted their bodies a few inches from the bed, only to lightly throw him back down to the mattress and switching their positions. His rival was careful enough not to allow himself to slide out of his already exhausted body.

The man's need for dominance pushed the last of his control aside and he allowed himself to be fully taken over without thought or emotion by his best friend. His dark eyes observed the pink blush creep across that pale chest as his body was plunged into in a delicious delirium that he knew had finally overtaken the man's mind.

Again he allowed his mouth to fall open and the small sounds of pleasure to escape and echo throughout the room. The dizziness in his head threatened to allow the darkness to set in, but he was determined not to allow it as he took a deeper breath in order to ward it away.

The movements were quick and almost harsh as he let himself be taken and the need tightly coil within him like spindle of thread. His legs were lifted and brought together and lifted, both ankles resting over the fox's right shoulder.

He felt his body hold the man's member tighter, squeezing and making his entrance smaller around the cock that filled it. The sensations became unbearable.

"Naruto, I'm really close," he managed to breath out in something much like a whisper.

"Fuck, you're incredible," the fox answered back, the member inside him twitching and pressing into the walls around it.

The man's breathing became heavy and quick and he knew that he was not alone in his approaching release. He felt his back involuntarily arch into the man's chest and off of the bed at the realization.

The still world around that they had made for themselves was penetrated and interrupted as a knock on the apartment door came and resonated, an irritating distraction. Their bodies ceased their movements, slightly startled.

He let out a sigh as he allowed his body to fall back into the mattress, his eyes closing from the remaining pleasure of that swollen member inside him.

He opened them and attempted to focus and tune his senses. He sighed again, much more audible than before. It was the hawk.

He supposed that the fox had known whom it had been as well. a sweaty body leaned into his own and a wet kiss landed on his salty temple as the man made to get up, his body trembling and giving his own pleasure away to Sasuke. The cock began to slowly slide out of him, as if it was an immensely regrettable action.

It displeased him. It made the jealousy resurface and he could not help himself but feel slightly hurt at the fact that Naruto was being drawn away to call on the Anbu guard that had offered himself to the fox, to call on the man that disapproved of Sasuke. He made the decision that he would not allow his rival to be taken from him after just obtaining him.

He reached out to grab a muscular bicep to stop the man as he moved away.

"Don't answer it. Stay with me," he commanded with his mouth and pled with his ink colored eyes.

His mouth perked up into a smirk as the man returned to his original position, sliding completely back inside him and replacing Sasuke's legs. The end of him was once again given that astounding pressure that he decided he had become addicted to.

"Ok, but try to be quiet, alright?" The man told him with a question that was not expected to be answered.

To confirm his place in the man's emotional attention span, he stated, "He will know what we're doing. He will know that you've purposely ignored him."

"Yeah, I know. I've found that I don't care about much of anything as long as I have you in front of me, Sasuke."

And then the movement resumed, although slower than before, and overtook him. Still the fox pressed deep and hard into him with each thrust.

The calmer pace and patience added to the tenderness and sensuality of the action. He allowed his eyes to heavily close again and squeeze shut from the warmth in his chest and the tightness in his lower stomach. He knew that the air that left his parted lips was moist and contained the heat from the fire within him that the fox had ignited.

A hand not his own made its way to his erection, warm and tight around him. It caressed with the slow pattern of the thrusts.

It was too much. He held back his moans and little noises of surrender by attacking the soft flesh of his lower lip in between two canine teeth, ready to rip holes in the meat.

"Don't bite it, it's mine, Sasuke," The man whispered against his forehead.

He obeyed and decided that he would always obey this man. He would not allow himself to become docile or aloof, but he would obey Naruto and Naruto alone.

Another knock came and went, this time not surprising either of them. They allowed it to sound as the wood was beat against with a surely clenched fist.

When the sound finally stopped, it did not come again and Sasuke could feel the hawk's chakra fade to an incomprehensible distance.

He allowed himself to further relax and he began to beg.

"Please, Naru. Please," he heard is own mouth plead to the man above him.

"Sasuke," his name was said between their bodies and the pace of the thrusts picked up and his cock was pumped with a faster rhythm.

He came into the hand around him quicker than he had anticipated. He pressed the weight from his ankles and into that strong shoulder as he used the leverage to thrust his hips upwards into the man's fist as he felt his warm cum cover his once muscled stomach.

"You're so beautiful," the man told him with a moan as the member was pressed and held as deeply as his body could take it.

He was pushed into the bed, his legs spread with purpose to allow the fox to enter him even deeper. The body leaned in closer to him, a weight placed upon his chest as the thrusts continued in a frenzied and uneven pace. His mouth was covered with warm and salty tasting lips as he felt the cock move in and out of his entrance, engorged with blood and pleasure. He ignored his own sensitivity from his recent climax.

"Do you love me, Sas'?" Naruto asked him.

"Yes, I love you," he answered.

"I love you too. I love you so much," the man confessed as he came inside him.

The heat spread throughout Sasuke's body as he called out to the only person that he had ever loved.

When their bodies calmed and settled, their breaths returning to normal, he let his head fall against the man's chest as he lay beside him. His ears picked up the beating of the fox's heart, chanting a loud rhythmic lullaby from where it hung in the chest cavity and protected from the ribs Sasuke had once crushed with the force of his hands.

"I don't think that I can be without you now," he told his rival, his hand smoothing over the expanse of tan wet skin beside his pale face.

"I could never without you from the start," Naruto told him, a small smile hidden in the sleepy voice.

The sound of that strong willed heart and the slow breaths raking through the body that he had given himself to, tempted his eyes to close.

They did not. The sound at the door returned, this time not wanting to be ignored or forgotten.

"I have to get up this time," the man said as he gestured for him to move his head.

This, he obeyed to and let his head fall against the pillow that the fox had left bare in his decent from the bed.

"I'll be right back, Teme," he was reassured as he watched the man pull his dark trousers over his strong legs.

Author's Note:

Dear Readers,

There are many definitions out there given for what Bibiri-kun means in translation from Japanese to English. I have chosen for it to mean 'scardy cat or 'fraidy cat, along those lines, because this is what I first learned it to mean years ago with the English subtitles that were provided when the particular episode aired. Readers may use any definition that they like. The point of using this particular word was for Sasuke to taunt Naruto in a playful way as he once did during their trip escorting the old carpenter. It was meant to remind Naruto of their past competitions and also remind him that they have always belonged to one another although they didn't know it yet.

The end of this chapter is not meant to be a cliff-hanger, I simply felt that the chapter was too long to be considered as one. It will also be no doubt, not a surprise to readers what is discussed once that door is open. I will be done with the next chapter fairly soon.

Thank you all again for taking the time to read my fiction and I hope that you've all had a wonderful Anti-love day or Valentine's Day.

With All My Fanfiction Love,

Nicky (Littlepurplestars)


	19. Chapter 18 The Hawk and a Walk

The Decisions That He Made For Himself

Chapter 18

The Hawk and a Walk

His best friend's absence from the room left him feeling lonely and chilled. He lifted his cheek from the pillow to make better use of both of his ears as he strained to listen.

He heard the man make heavy steps towards the apartment door and the deep voice that entered throughout the surroundings as it was opened.

"So, you finally told him then?" he heard the hawk ask of the fox.

"Heh heh, yeah. I couldn't keep it from him anymore, it hurt too much," his new lover responded.

He laughed at himself internally. He never thought he'd ever have the stomach to do something so common and cliché as calling someone his lover. It was something a woman would say. It was something someone without worries or cares would say. It was something someone not needing to seek revenge would say.

Then he laughed again, this time slightly audible. He was a few of those things after all. He no longer needed to worry about most things, he knew that Naruto would take care of him. He would not starve. He would not die of an attack while he was within the village walls.

He was not a female, but he thought that perhaps he had been playing the part of one. Playing the part of someone almost helpless. Playing the role as the weaker of the two, he knew that they both understood that it wasn't true, but it hadn't stopped him from seeming to be. He had even allowed himself to be dominated. To be taken over. To be owned and possessed. They were all gestures and actions that were expected from women. He did not regret or feel embarrassed from this, as he had expected to. Instead he felt an odd sense of comfort in the way Naruto did not ask these roles of him but accepted them from him all the same. It captivated him the way that Naruto almost seemed to become more aroused by how well he played them while keeping his personality intact.

He no longer sought revenge, he had had enough of that for this lifetime. He had had enough of running towards danger instead of allowing himself to be pulled into a protective embrace as he was now. He no longer wanted to be broken off and severed from the bonds he had unintentionally created.

He was all of these things, so why not use the term lover? He scoffed, a scowl setting on his pale face. He would not use it again, The fact that he had the ability to and not feel guilty or encumbered by it was enough for him. Yes, Naruto was his lover, the only one he had ever wanted or would ever have, but no he would not make a habit of using that word out loud.

"And so you just jump right into a physical relationship with him?" The hawk asked Sasuke's rival.

"What do you mean?" the voice held a nervous laugh and Sasuke knew that that tan hand had come to play in the yellow hair at the back of the fox's head.

"I'm not stupid. Honestly, I'm disappointed in you. You know what he's done to you and you know how badly he can hurt you. I don't understand why you would make yourself vulnerable to him when it can only mean getting wounded again. I could understand taking things slow, but all he has to do is say that he loves you, and you, you, you just sleep with him?"

He frowned. Anger and a touch of sadness infected him at the hawk's words. It was true that he had hurt Naruto in the past, had almost killed him in fact. But he had not done any of that with pure malicious intent, the man had just simply been in his way. Now that he had allowed himself to openly love the fox, he knew that he could never allow himself to harm his best friend again.

It angered him that the hawk could think so badly of him. It angered him that as an all righteous member of the Konoha Hidden Leaf Village, the hawk held no belief in the ability to change or in second chances. It contradicted the way of life that the village wanted onlookers and citizens to abide by. He shook his head, trying to control his silent anger as the conversation outside the room continued on.

"Neji, of course I know what he used to be like, but he's different now. I mean he's the same person, just nicer I guess. And I loved him before when he was stuck up and arrogant, so why would this be such a surprise even if he still had the same attitude? It's more than just sleeping with him, you know that. I've loved him for so long that I can't stand to be apart from him, especially when he's constantly telling everyone that will listen that he feels the same way for me. I never thought that was possible and I feel like this is all just the world playing a cruel joke on me, I hope the punch line never comes and it stays like this forever because I'm really happy," the fox proclaimed.

It made him smile. The man had loved him as long as he had loved the man and was not afraid to admit it to others. The man had stood up for him when his personality was being attacked, again his belief that he would be protected grew. The man had stated that he was happy.

His heart beat hard and fast in his chest. He was just as happy. He would strive to continue making the man feel content and comfortable with him.

Hyuga Neji had never liked him, he recalled. The pale eyed man had always kept his distance. Had always guarded himself from being charmed by his intelligence and superior skill, unlike everyone else in their generation had.

"I don't doubt your feelings for him. We all knew how you felt about him before you ever told us. What I'm worried about is_ him_ pretending to have these feelings for you. You know how manipulative he can be, I just don't want him to hurt you." The hawk told his friend.

He sensed a change in the fox's chakra and felt a hot tinge of rage ripple outward from the man. He would have liked to see Naruto's face, he decided. He would have liked to remember the way that the man's scarred face tensed and came together in a frown. He wanted to see, to remember, so that he always felt motivated to keep that face from gathering those unhappy lines.

He let out the air in his lungs as a sigh as he felt the heat from the fox fade away and a coolness in the chakra set in.

"Look, I understand that you're concerned for me and actually I'm pretty happy that I have such a good friend, but I don't like the way that you're talking about Sasuke. I know how he was and I know that he's still just as clever and cunning as he ever was, but he has no reason to hurt me. If you could just see and understand the way he's bared himself to me, you'd get it. I honestly think that he's just trying to have a happy life. He didn't get to have one before, and now he believes that I can give him one, which I'm more than excited to try. I love him, and I'm sure that he loves me too. Why would he make himself so vulnerable with a lie like that? If it's not true, he's going through an awful lot of trouble for such a joke. Coming back to the village, risking execution, making himself look weak and sensitive, all for the sake of hurting my feelings somehow?"

His rival had made a valid point. He had bared himself. He had shown the softest parts of him for this man. If he did not love Naruto, why would he allow his reputation and the perception that people had of him change? Not only was he making himself seem vulnerable to emotional pain, in announcing his love for the ninja, he was also inviting the enemies he had made over the years to strike him where it would hurt him the most.

He shook his head and laid his cheek back down against the pillow. He couldn't imagine ever losing Naruto, he never could, not even when it had been him that had threatened to take away the fox's life. He could not stand it then, and now that the two of them finally belonged to one another after all this time, he thought that perhaps he would die alongside the man should anything happen.

Naruto had told him that once. That they would die together. That their bond couldn't be broken even after death. He made the decision to take it as a challenge.

The hawk must have understood that he could never win a fight about Sasuke with Naruto, it simply wasn't possible. The man had never allowed anyone to speak badly of him, even when he had seen Sasuke at his worst and most delusional, he would not allow it now. The hawk backed off and stood down.

"Alright, I'm sorry Naruto. You're right, that would be an overly elaborate plan of some sort. I just wanted to make sure. I couldn't stand to see you as broken over him as you once were. You know that your friendship means a lot to me, I'm sorry if I've offended you."

It hurt him as he listened because it was true, he had hurt and broken the fox and he wasn't quite sure how he could ever make it up to him. He laid still and listened to his own breathing as the pain of his memories settled over him.

"It's alright Neji, it's fine. Was there a reason you came here in the first place?" he heard the man ask of the hawk.

"Well I originally came to relieve you of your watch, but I see now that that won't be necessary. I'll still keep my post from outside, if you've got everything handled from here."

With that, goodbyes were said and one chakra faded away while another came towards him and filled him with comfort and security.

As he watched the man reenter the room, his skin ached to be touched. He knew that the fox sensed this when a gentle hand reached down to caress the side of his face as a weight sat down on the bed next to him where he lie.

He felt brave enough to lift his head from the pillow in order to move closer to the man. He allowed all of the weight in his head to fall against a sturdy thigh as he lay on the man's lap. Tan fingers fell to his hair.

"What's wrong, Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

He let his breath out. Pushed all of the hurt from his eavesdropping away. Allowed a smirk to play on his lips in attempt to make light of the situation.

"He is in love with you," he stated to the fox.

"Ha, yeah I know. But it doesn't matter," was the response.

"Why not?" he asked, a curiosity threatening to push him over.

"Love is an awfully important thing, but I have everything I need right here. He knew that, he always knew that. You were always what I needed," the man told him.

"You don't feel bad for turning him down?" He asked.

He watched the way the light reflected back at him from those blue eyes.

"I don't think you quite understand. He's been offering himself to me for years, kinda like I did with Sakura. I always knew that she wouldn't truly accept me, and he knew that I didn't have any of my heart left to give. He's a great friend, but it was always you that I wanted and he knew that. I think sometimes he doesn't really love me as much as he pretends to, I've noticed him watching Hinata an awful lot lately, ha ha. So I think he'll be alright," the fox told him as a lock of dark hair was inspected and rubbed between two fingers.

He wondered then if everyone had known how Naruto had felt about him. He wondered if it had ever been a secret at all and if it was just him that hadn't noticed.

"Does everyone know that? Does everyone know how you feel about me?" he asked, bringing a pale hand to draw unintelligible patterns on the knee cap in front of his face and to display a sense of affection for his fox.

"Yeah, how could they not?" the man asked him with a laugh in his voice.

He smiled. It pleased him. There was sure to be competition over his rival, but at least they had been fairly warned that Naruto would want no other all that easily.

"How long have they known?" He shifted his head within the fox's lap so that he was able to look up into the sky colored eyes he had adored so much.

"Ah, forever I should think, I had always made it obvious. But I didn't tell them until after Sakura went after you that time. They had all come to help her in her selfishness, I was so angry. I went off on them, screaming about how no one was allowed to hurt you, cursing at them for plotting to even so much as touch you. I ranted for what seemed like forever, Kakashi had to come up behind me and hug me to get me to stay still. I cried like an idiot, just standing there with him holding on to me like that. I felt helpless. I was gonna lose you to the Kages and then I was gonna lose you to my friends, it was just too much. I remember yelling at them, 'How dare you try to take him from me? How dare you go behind my back and plot and scheme to take everything away from me like that? You're supposed to be my friends and the people that I'm trying to become strong enough to protect, how could you even think to take away the person I love most?' They just stared at me. Shika asked me if it was true that I was in love with you, and after I told him yes, everyone apologized and promised that they would be on my side and try to find a better way than killing you." The fox paused in his speech to lean down and press his lips to Sasuke's in a brief reassurance before continuing on.

"Like I said before, how I felt about you wasn't really much of a secret, but I guess some of them hadn't acknowledged it before and when they finally had, they confessed to me that they finally understood why I wasn't able to give you up. Others like Gaara and Kakashi already knew. Even Iruka Sensei had known all along. He said that he's known from our first fight. I laugh at him every time he tells me that and he just makes a stern face and tells me not to doubt his teacher's intuition. Baa-chan knew too. That's why she was so willing to listen to me when she was deciding your sentencing. She didn't want to hurt me, she said," the man told him.

"How did _she_ take it?" he asked the fox, the curiosity twisting in his middle stomach.

"Sakura? You can probably guess that she didn't take it too well at first. She was the most surprised I think, which was really strange because she was my teammate and my closest friend at the time. She was so angry with me. I don't really even understand the whole reason or reasons, but I know she was mad because she thought that I'd try to take you away from her and because she was jealous because I had moved on from her and loved you more. She's so confusing sometimes, but anyway at first she took it really bad. She wouldn't even talk to me for a few days afterward, she didn't realize that it didn't upset me all that much because I was still mad at her for trying to hurt you hehe. I talked to her about it later. I told her everything, everything about how I felt about you and for how long. She felt bad for me after that. She told me that she pitied me because it didn't matter if I loved you or not because I'm a guy and you didn't like men. She told me that you loved her anyway, so I should just move on. She changed though. After a while she started to accept it more and approached it differently, trying to convince me that you're no good for me and that even if there was any small chance that you might be in love with me too, that you would just hurt me in the end." Naruto paused at the end of his long speech to rub a slightly nervous fingertip over the soft skin of Sasuke's neck.

He said nothing in return as he watched the fox's lips part to add something that perhaps he wasn't meant to hear.

"It doesn't matter though. It doesn't matter to me if you really do hurt me in the end, because being with you like this will always be worth everything that you throw at me. Even if things become the way that they were before, with you hating me and trying to kill me for some reason or another, I'll always remember the person that you are right now and the way that you look up at me like that, when I think of you. I could never hate you no matter what, you know that right, Sasuke?"

The energy thrummed through him. The emotions that the words invoked in him paralyzed him and held him still in his position. Naruto had proclaimed in a subtle way with those words that the way he was towards the man in this moment, was the way that Naruto wished and wanted him to be. The fox had also admitted that Sasuke could never make the man stop loving him.

"I know. I have always known. For a while when I was in that room and long before I came back to the village, I wondered if you had finally given up on me and decided to hate me for all of the things that I did to you. I was so afraid. Deep down I knew that I was wrong though, my anxiety just hid the truth away underneath everything and pulled my doubts to the surface to feed it," he told his rival.

"Come here," Naruto commanded, urging him to sit up and fold himself in those strong arms that wrapped themselves around his pale shoulders.

He allowed himself to be held in this way for as long as it took to make up for all of the time he had wasted away while running from the person he needed most. He thought that perhaps this was what he had needed all along, to be taken care of and loved. To be told that everything would be alright. Told that he could do nothing to make that love disperse and float away like a flower petal from the sakura trees.

"What would I do without you Sas'? I mean, truly do without you? You've been everything to me longer than I can remember? What if you had never came back? What if you had died? I would have nothing left to live for. I've got my friends and I've got this village, but they don't move me the way that you do," the fox told him, while catching his gaze with those blue eyes glistening with what he knew to be hurt.

He closed his own dark eyes and thought about how his own life would fair should he lose his fox, his rival, his best friend, and now his lover. There was that word again. It didn't matter, not now that the pain he felt from even suggesting there be a day that he'd have to face knowing that the only person he had ever loved no longer existed, had torn through him like an open wound from the harshest battle.

He opened them again and reached a pale hand up to caress the tan face above his own where his cheek had come to rest on a stiff shoulder and let a small smile settle on his mouth.

"You won't have to be without me. You wanted me so badly, now you're stuck with me. Don't regret this when I'm still the strongest and most clever out of the two of us."

"Teme," the man said, a small sigh displaying his contentedness.

Then his mouth was taken over again, his head inviting the dizziness and optimism from the feel of those lips against his own. He parted them and took in the tongue that danced and begged. He lost himself for the few delicious seconds that he was devoured.

Later, he found himself pressed against a hard bare chest. Strong arms around his waist. Warm hands resting on the curve of his behind. Soft breaths twisting lightly over his skin. A salt flavor tingling across his lips. He sighed and pressed himself further into the embrace and fell into a comfortable sleep. He decided that he had never truly felt as relaxed as he did in this moment, that he had never allowed himself to let go and enjoy the moments of sleep.

When they had woken and their hungers were sated from the food provided in the kitchen, the man suggested that they take a walk around the village to observe its various changes and additions.

At first anxiety swirled around in the bottom of his stomach at the thought of it. He knew the looks that he would be given. He knew the fear that he would cause in the villagers that would surely step out into the street to observe the former avenger and village traitor. He knew the disapproval that he was sure would be displayed on the faces of the fox's friends.

He took several deep breaths and allowed his lungs to inflate in attempt to clear his mind. With the exhale he realized that being reintegrated into the village was what he had wanted, especially with Naruto beside him.

And then he smirked to himself. His pride and his arrogance resurfaced in a subtle way as he admitted his desire for other's to see him walking content and happy with the only man that had ever earned his heart. The women that were sure to follow him would be disappointed and all those that desired Naruto would see just whom the fox belonged to.

He became giddy at this selfish thought and allowed himself to visibly smile at the man after the suggestion was made. His smile was returned with an even brighter beam and he wondered if perhaps the man had been thinking similar thoughts to his own.

They left the apartment and were followed by the stealthy Anbu. They walked shoulder to shoulder, his relaxed hands by his sides itching to grab ahold of his rival's as they walked. He resisted the urge and decided that perhaps it would be best to allow his fox to keep control of their situation until they had both become completely comfortable and immersed in their new life together.

They walked this way for several minutes, the man stopping every few feet to show him something new or point out how something had been left out when the village had been rebuilt after the attacks that threatened it and its people.

"I'm so happy that they were able to rebuild the ramen shop, it's still my favorite if you hadn't already guessed. I'll take you there sometime soon," Naruto told him, any professionalism that had been expected of the fox had faded and dispersed at the way they were finally able to walk beside one another without fighting or playing a dangerous game of tag.

People, both shinobi and untrained civilians often stopped to get a look at the former avenger, their eyes wide in an almost state of disbelief.

He had always been observed throughout every stage and part of his life time so far, but this was different. This was them judging him with mixed emotions that he could see spread out over their faces like a transparent paint. Fear, curiosity, and even pride were shown in the way their eyes wandered over him.

He shook his doubts about fitting in away and out of his train of thought. They would get used to his presence. They would eventually see that he no longer wished to cause any harm. They would soon understand that as long as Naruto was willing to lead him, he would begin to follow without hesitation. He smiled something small at them as the two of them passed by.

He took note of the way that the setting and atmosphere was calm and almost peaceful compared to everything else he had encountered over the years and he felt himself relaxing into the idea that this was now his permanent home. His head swam with the possibility of spending his new life surrounded by these safe walls and wrapped in those secure tan arms that he craved most. He let the tension wash out of him.

They were quiet for a long time until they came to the place where his family home was supposed to stand. It was filled with houses and their owners, but nothing he had seen before. He looked off into the space around them, his eyes avoiding the new construction.

He supposed that it was only natural for them to tear down or choose not to rebuild the Uchiha Compound. It was only expected for them to be unconcerned with the belongings and property of a criminal that may never return or live past catching a glimpse of the village gates at all.

"Pain destroyed everything, and I mean everything. There was nothing left of the village at all. We had to rebuild all of this. Baa-Chan didn't think there was any reason for her to bother rebuilding all of your family homes and even I agreed with her because you're the only Uchiha left so you don't need so many. I asked her to rebuild at least one house that you could call your own when you got back, but she denied my request. She said she didn't think it was a good idea to waste money and time on a home that might not ever be used. I was upset at first and thought she was suggesting that I'd never be able to bring you back. I yelled her and I guess she felt bad for me because she tried to make me feel better by saying that you don't need a big house because my own apartment is plenty big enough for the both of us. This was after she officially knew how I felt about you. She was just trying to give me hope, I think. I'm sorry that there's nothing left for you," the fox told him, a solemn look fanned out over that face he had always adored, even when he had tried to hate it.

He thought everything over. His childhood home was gone as was his parents' belongings. The homes of his aunts and uncles. The small yard that he had first trained in. The tree that his mother had sat under as she read a scroll. The back porch where he had sat with Itatchi.

His heart ached at the memories. Itatchi had pulled him into his lap as they watched the clouds float overhead, uncaring about the human world below. Itatchi had whispered to him that although many bad things may happen in the future, to never forget that his big brother loved him. Itatchi had taught him how to throw a kunai at the smallest knot on the bark of the sakura tree in the garden. Itatchi had poked his forehead in his roundabout affectionate way.

His throat gathered the emotion and sadness and then threatened to choke him with it all. He raised a hand to his own cheek to wipe away the wetness that he hadn't intended to let leave his eyes.

He pushed everything out of him with a large exhale of breath. Crying over it would not do. It was done and it was what he had always trained for. He supposed that it was perfectly acceptable to feel guilt and frustration about what he had done to his Aniki and just as so to mourn over the loss of the last place they had been happy together, but it would not do to allow it to control this new chance at happiness that he had been handed. It had been his goal after all. It had been what he had dedicated his life to from the start of it all.

He lifted his head from where he had allowed it to fall and his eyes to focus on the ground to look over at his fox, the water from his eyes evaporating, leaving no trace of sadness.

"It's fine. She was right anyway, I don't mind living in an apartment with you even if it happens to be the smallest possible," he smirked at the last words, hoping to tease the man.

"Hey! I'll have you know, Teme, that my apartment is much bigger than the one you remember. Hey, wait you wouldn't mind living with me?" the man asked, that voice lowering and fading out into the air as those blue eyes focused on his own. He held his smirk in place.

"No, I wouldn't mind. I thought perhaps that would have been implied by my desire to spend the rest of my life with you."

The man smiled back at him and drew that solid body that he knew to be strong, nearer to his. The closeness caught his breath and dismissed all chances to mock the man's intelligence.

"I love you," he told the fox, as he had done so many times before.

The man closed his eyes for several seconds as if they pained him before opening them again. Sasuke frowned at this gesture, expecting something cruel and devastating to pour from that mouth.

"Ha, every time you tell me it still feels like an audible hallucination. I keep thinking that none of this is real and I keep trying to prepare myself for when I'll wake up and all of this, all of the you that you are right now with me, will be gone or didn't exist at all. I know I keep saying things like that, but I can't get over it. It's just that from the way that things were between us before and the way that everyone believed it always would be, the way that we are right now is such a surprise. I had always expected for you to deep down understand and take our friendship and bond as seriously as I do, but I never thought that you'd ever love me back. I never thought that you'd ever choose me. I just-I just can't get enough of hearing you say it and I feel like the more you tell me, the easier believing this isn't make believe will be. I have always loved you, you don't understand how happy I am to finally be allowed to be by your side Sasuke," Naruto admitted to him.

He felt the need to verbally dismiss the man's fears, although he knew that Naruto was intelligent enough to realize that they weren't real anyway.

"This way that I feel about you isn't made up. Me wanting to spend my life next to you, is not a game of pretend. If all of it was make believe, I would have never pushed my pride aside to shame myself and admit my flaws as well as my deep and overwhelming love for another man. Especially, for you of all people. It's always been annoying, the way I could never quite stop thinking of you even after I had tried to distance myself from you and sever any connection that we had between one another. Do not misunderstand me, I am happy that you are the one that I unintentionally fell in love with and I could not ever choose anyone else to have taken your place, but if this was not real I would never have been willing to die in order to please you or for you to keep that promise to her. I love you and that's something that you'll have to just deal with for the rest of our lives since you've told me that you feel the same." He ended the proclamation with a small smile as he tilted his head in an almost seductive gesture.

The man moved ever closer and placed a tan hand under his chin, the thumb rubbing the smooth skin it found there softly stretched over the bone. It moved in small circles for several seconds before the hand pulled his mouth closer to the fox's.

The kiss was soft at first and then deepened. The desire to dominate him in a passionate and mesmerizing way bled through the man's skin and showed in the weight that was placed against his body in an aching pressure.

His stomach tingled and his mouth ached for more. His body overheated and he could not help himself, as he found that he often could not when he was around this fox of a man. He pushed his hips against the solid body in front of his and openly displayed the hardness that had formed between his legs as he pressed himself into the other man.

The man's hand came to rest upon his waist, pulling him in closer and with need and those lips moved from his own and came to rest upon his left ear.

"I can't stand this, Teme. I can't stand it when you're this way with me. Come on," the man commanded him as their bodies were separated a few inches and his fingers became intertwined with Naruto's as he was pulled to a new destination.

The man pulled him into the small and narrow space between two buildings nearby, the shade making the passageway dark enough to keep them hidden from passing civilians.

The Anbu would not miss their location, he knew, but he decided that he didn't care. They knew already everything that he had done with his fox and it was not something he felt ashamed of. If anything, being the proud Uchiha that he was, he was exhilarated by the knowledge that they knew just who Naruto's mate was. Yes, he belonged to Naruto just as the fox belonged to him.

As the darkness covered their skin, that hot mouth came to cling at the pulsing vein on his slender neck. A tongue danced against the skin that it found there and he allowed a sigh to escape from his chest. A warm and calloused hand played with the waist of his trousers.


End file.
